


two halves of a whole

by reylo_mo (writermo)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alderaan, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Arranged Marriage, Feral Rey, Fight Scenes, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Force Without Jedis, Han and Leia are alive, No Jedi, Prince Ben Solo, Scavenger Rey, Slow Burn, both Ben and Rey are fighters so there are some descriptions of that, but nowhere near Game of Thrones levels of violence or anything, lost princess Rey, rey is a palpatine, royal family, some angst but not much I feel because author has not learned to do angst, took me like eight chapters where nothing happened to realise this was a slow burn lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:02:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23820517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writermo/pseuds/reylo_mo
Summary: "You," she said, those damned hazel eyes of hers widening. Something remarkably like fury was creeping into her features. "You'rethe crown prince of Alderaan?"Ben blinked, unprepared for the animosity emanating from his future bride. "You'rethe crown princess of Exegol?"Behind him, he could hear his mother groan.|| or, a reylo arranged marriage medieval AU.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 133
Kudos: 271





	1. rough diamond

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic ever, so I thought why not go all out - hit all the cheesiest tropes and make it a multi-chapter too. I hope it brings joy to whomever is reading this, just like how I'm finding so much joy in writing it. I'm planning to update regularly and follow where the story goes. Drop a kudos if you liked it!

Prince Benjamin Solo stepped back from his midnight black stallion and put down his brush. He always tended to his own horse if he could help it, even at the palace - although it was more of a struggle to find the time back there. Here, miles and miles away in the tiny village of Niima and masquerading as an ordinary knight named Kylo Ren - it was easier.

Easier to be left alone for half an hour to groom his own horse, just him and Arte and the stables - easier to find the time and the freedom. It was a lot easier, in general, being Sir Kylo Ren than being Prince Ben Solo of Alderaan.

Ben gave Arte a last pat on the nose and shut the stall door just as the sound of thundering hooves alerted him to a new arrival outside the stables. Ben looked out at the newcomer, mildly curious - the sun was already down, and whoever was riding in like that sounded like they were a hurry. He wiped his hands on a rag and stepped out to the yard.

A young man - a knight, by the look of the shield on his palfrey - was just getting off his horse when he caught sight of Ben. "Sire!" he said in surprise as he dismounted. After a second, Ben recognised him. Sir Finn was a fairly new knight, having taken his oath not two summers ago - Ben still remembered him as a fresh-faced squire practising his rounds at sparring.

"Sir Finn," said Ben, nodding. He cast an eye around the yard, but fortunately there was no-one else there. He dropped his voice lower as Finn approached him. "Although it's Sir Kylo Ren you should be greeting, out here."

"Oh, right," said Finn, obviously embarrassed that he had forgotten about his overlord's preferred alter ego on the road. "My apologies, Sir Kylo."

Ben's true identity wasn't exactly a desperate secret; it wasn't like he had adopted the disguise under the threat of life or death. But when Ben left the capital for his travels around the kingdom, he usually found that it was easier for the local folk to accept him joining their patrols and building their bridges when they thought him a lowly knight of an undecorated house. No-one wanted to be the one to let the sole heir to the throne of Alderaan sleep in a room at the local inn after a hard day of hunting bandits or shovelling dirt.

The deception allowed him to see his kingdom for what it was really like, even if it did nothing to lessen the assumption that Ben Solo was an absent prince who never spent enough time at court and never spent enough time building relations with his noble lords on their lands, either.

"Do you hail from Coruscant, Sir Finn?" asked Ben. If Finn was coming from the capital city, two hard days' ride away, there was a chance that he was here to deliver a message to him. Ben tossed a coin to the holster's boy, who stepped out of the shadows by the stable door to catch it. "See to his horse, lad," he said.

"Yes, milord, yestermorn," said Finn, letting Ben lead him indoors to the inn. "I'm headed for Jakku - it was wishful thinking to think I could make it there by nightfall, so I thought to stop here for tonight and head on out tomorrow."

"Jakku?" Ben frowned. If Niima was considered a tiny village, Jaaku was even less than that - a dry scrap of barren land with hardly any inhabitants. "What's in Jakku?"

Finn's reply was drowned out as they stepped into the crowded din of the inn's dining room, and the knight looked like he would appreciate having a good meal in him before furthering any conversations anyway. They found a table and ordered food and drink, and Ben waited until Finn had pushed back his empty plate with a satisfied sigh before raising a brow in silent question.

"I'm on an errand," explained Finn. "From the palace, actually."

Ben's other eyebrow shot up to join the first. "The palace?"

Finn nodded and leaned in. "The royal guard has told me to fetch this girl - well, a woman, really. Possibly a lady. They've been looking for her."

This was news to Ben - although, it wasn't surprising, given that it had been some weeks since he'd been in Coruscant. "Possibly a lady?" he repeated. "Is she noble or not? Who is she?"

Finn shrugged. "I wasn't given many details, Your Highness," he said, apologetic. "I don't know who exactly is looking for her or who she is, even. Apparently, they were going by a description and word got back that this girl in Jakku matched it - so they sent someone - me - to go and fetch her."

Ben tapped the side of his wine goblet with his finger. "Interesting."

"She's a scavenger, reports said," continued Finn. "A fend-for-yourself type of person. Goes by the name of Rey."

"Well, you'd have to be, in a place like Jakku," Ben pointed out. "If she's scavenging around in Jakku it's highly doubtful that she's a noble. Unless she's some minor lord's wayward daughter or bastard child - actually, that's quite likely. Does she know you're coming?"

"No," said Finn. "But, you know, I don't think I'll be meeting with a lot of resistance. If she's with people, a little coin will go some ways to convince them to be amenable. And it's Jakku. I don't know why she herself wouldn't want to leave it."

Ben nodded slowly. He didn't doubt that Finn would be more than capable on his errand, and at the end of the day that was nothing particularly interesting about going to fetch some random girl from a junkyard barely passing for a habitable village. But he heard the words coming out of his mouth anyway.

"We leave tomorrow at dawn."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing this mostly for myself, but do drop a line if you like how things are going so far. I'm also on twitter at @reylo_mo :)


	2. lost treasure

The ride to Jakku didn't take long. Within an hour, the landscape had changed from dry and dusty to dry and _barren_ , and Ben and Finn arrived at the loose circle of huts that housed most of the inhabitants of Jakku.

"Rocks," said Finn under his breath. "It's like we're in a different kingdom."

"We may as well be," Ben muttered back. Alderaan was a mid-sized kingdom and its citizens had not had to live in fear of war or starvation for many a generation. Still, poverty was a difficult evil to eradicate in any kingdom, and Jakku was one of the places in Alderaan which had fallen through the cracks. The only good thing that could be said about Jakku was that it was small. 

So fewer people had the misfortune of living there. 

"Hey," said Finn, guiding his horse over to a surly-looking fellow sitting outside his hut, surrounded by a pile of rusted knives and what looked like half a dried animal carcass. "You there. Whereabouts can I find a girl called Rey?"

The large blob of a man gave a loud belch. "Who's asking, eh?"

"I am Sir Finn of the house Storm. Do you know a girl named Rey?" 

The man grabbed the carcass with his bare hands and before giving Finn a sideways look. "And what do I git for answering?"

Finn flipped a silver coin at the man, who tried clumsily to catch it and failed. "I trust that should speed things up a little," Finn said pointedly. 

But the man only spat something quite disgusting and not altogether wholly liquid into the ground. "Ain't enough."

Ben thought that it was time he gave this hedge-pig some extra encouragement. He dismounted. "Good man," he said coolly, "Perhaps I can make this a bit easier for – "

"Can I help you, my lords?"

Ben's eyes snapped away from his would-be victim and landed on a slim young woman standing a few feet from them. Ben and Finn had their backs to the morning sun, so she was squinting slightly as she looked at them, but her gaze was open and friendly all the same. She tilted her head at the man who was now alternating between sticking his finger into his mouth and his right ear. "That one's not really worth your time."

"Oi, you little minx – "

"Save it, Plutt," said the girl, and though her face was still as cheery as before, Ben detected just a hint of steel in her voice. He raised a brow. Plutt had fallen completely silent. 

The girl turned back to Finn and Ben. "Were you needing something, sirs?"

"Yes," said Finn eagerly, darting towards her. "We're looking for someone named Rey."

The girl smiled. "You've found her, then. I'm Rey." 

"This is perfect!" said Finn enthusiastically, and Ben wondered if he had ever been that young and chipper. It was a pointless line of questioning, really, one he knew the answer to. When Ben had been Finn's age, he'd been young and - angry. Very angry. "Miss Rey – "

"It's just Rey," the owner of the name said firmly. She looked both of them over slowly, clearly sizing them up. Ben took the opportunity to size Rey up in turn. 

She was an odd mixture of contrasts. Her body was slight and lithe but she was tall for a woman; her limbs were long and toned. Ben could tell because she was dressed in a way that he hadn't seen on anyone before – noble or commoner of either sex. She was wearing what looked like a short-sleeved tunic and tight breeches, but they weren't the usual sturdy clothes of a labourer. Instead, her tunic looked made of thin, ample material, wrapped several times around her waist and shoulders in lieu of being allowed to hang modestly. She had a staff slung across her back and her hair was inexplicably done up in three buns. 

It was the oddest way he had seen anyone dressed in some time – like she wanted the freedom of mobility and her hair to be held out of her face, but wasn't willing to give up the frivolity of extra fabric and adding two too many buns than was strictly necessary. 

Ben and Finn must have passed muster, because Rey straightened and beckoned to them. "Well, if it's me you're looking for, I suppose I'd better invite you inside," she said, turning on her heel. "I'm just this way."

The huts they passed as they followed her looked small, but those were luxurious compared to the one Rey led them to. Even Finn looked doubtful as they hitched their horses outside and followed Rey in, Ben nearly doubling over to fit in the doorway. Rey casually unslung her staff and stood it at a corner of the hut's single, tiny room. She didn't ask them to sit down, because while there was a table standing stark in the middle of the space, she didn't have any chairs. Ben grimaced; the top of his head was hitting the ceiling, and he was already standing hunched over.

"So," said Rey, turning around to face them. At such close quarters, Ben could see that she had delicate features and numerous freckles splashed across her nose and cheeks. They gave her an unexpectedly girlish appearance that once again clashed with the bold way she was looking at them both. "To what do I owe this honour, being sought out by two such fine knights of the realm?" 

"I'm Sir Finn Storm, and this is Sir Kylo Ren," said Finn. "We have orders from the royal guard to look for one Rey of Jakku, and escort her to Coruscant."

Ben didn't know why, but he was watching Rey like a hawk. He saw the surprise cross her face before she schooled it back to neutral territory. "Well, Sir Finn, we've already established that that's me," she said slowly. "You want me to go to the city?" 

"It's orders, miss," said Finn. He dug out a folded piece of parchment from his belt-pouch and handed it over to Rey. Ben wondered fleetingly whether Rey knew how to read, but he saw her eyes track across the parchment like she did. "From the palace. You've been summoned by the royal guard and I'm here to escort you to them."

Rey looked up. " _Why_?" she demanded. "I've never been to Coruscant in my life. I've not even been more than twenty miles away from Jakku."

Ben winced internally at that. That was a hard life to lead. 

Rey snapped her gaze on him. "Do you have a problem with that, sir?" she asked, an edge in her voice. 

Right. So maybe he hadn't winced _internally_.

"Rey," said Finn, stepping in quickly. "I know this may come as a bit of a shock for you, but the royal guard is adamant that they have the right person. You're not in any sort of trouble. There are probably just some people in the palace who want to talk to you, and it will be all straightened out when we get there. And I can assure you will be compensated for the journey and your trouble. Do you live alone?"

Rey just stared at him, and then glanced pointedly at the very single bed in the single room of the house they were standing in.

"Of course, of course," said Finn hastily. "Do you have any friends and family you're worried about leaving behind? We could talk to them to ease their minds. What do you do for a living, Rey?"

It was like Finn had doused Rey with a bucket of cold water, the way her face closed shut. "It's just me," she said, her voice hard. "I'm a… collector. I sell my wares to Plutt out there, whom you had the pleasure of meeting."

"Good, good," said Finn breezily. "So this should be easy, Rey. It's still early in the day, so you can have some time to pack any valuables you might have. Coruscant is about two days' ride away, and you don't have a horse, but there are usually road wagons leaving from Niima – "

"I think you should leave." There was nothing in Rey's voice that hinted at uncertainty or diffidence. She pointed at the door. "You can go the same way you came in."

Finn threw Ben a nervous glance, and then shifted his weight from foot to foot. "Miss Rey," he tried again. "What you're holding there is a direct sanction from the royal guard - "

"What he's trying to say is," said Ben, cutting in and keeping his eyes on Rey, "this is not a request."

Rey smiled at him. It was not a friendly smile. "Alright," she said. "Then come and get me." And she gave the wooden table between them a violent push, sending it and its contents flying in a loud crash. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters are already written and I'm actually holding back from posting them all up at once... hope you guys are liking this fic so far! Comments and kudos are always appreciated :)


	3. first cut

Ben already had his hand on his sword hilt by the time Rey retrieved her staff. From the way she was holding it at the ready, it was clear she knew what she was doing, but Ben was hesitant to draw his blade all the same. Crouched in a fighting stance, with the long pole in her hands, it struck him how _small_ she seemed, even if she _looked_ positively feral. 

The thought distracted him for a moment too long, because the next thing he knew Finn was lunging at Rey with his blade drawn. Ben swore – the space was too crowded, someone could get seriously hurt – but Rey had already stepped up to meet Finn's strike with a neat parry of her staff, deftly catching the flat of his sword so the blade didn't even bite the wood. 

There was a beat of stunned silence in the room, but Rey wasn't about to wait for them to get over it. Lightning-quick, she disengaged her staff and swung it round to club Finn on his temple, a single, solid blow that sent the knight down like rock. 

Rey blew an errant curl of hair out of her face. "Sir Kylo," she said pleasantly. "You're blocking my way out." And she leapt across the overturned table at Ben, staff swinging in a clean arc in the air. 

But Ben wasn't a green knight one year out of squiredom. He caught Rey's staff squarely in both his hands on the downward swing. The force of it knocked him back a step, and Ben was briefly impressed by this slip of a girl's strength, but he yanked the staff out of her hands and flung it aside with ease. 

She scrambled away from him. Ben tried to speak, holding his hands out in a sign of peace. "Listen – "

But Rey wasn't listening, and it became apparent that her next plan of action was to pick up the scattering of objects on the floor and throw them at Ben. He dodged the first one, a wooden bowl of some sort, easily. The second one he dodged as well, but it was made of ceramic, and shattered against the wall too close to his head for his liking. 

Ben had had enough. Grounding himself, he closed his eyes and held a hand aloft. He didn't normally do this – didn't normally do this in battle _ever_ – but he was usually faced with opponents he actually wanted to win against in a fair fight, as opposed to wild scavenger-girls. He made a mental note to hurry. He had approximately two seconds before Rey threw something else at him, and standing still with his eyes closed, he had just become a much easier target.

But when Ben reached out with the Force, willing himself to slip into the girl's mind and just coax her to inaction, he was met with an unexpected resistance. Something like a cool wall of glass, invisible but very certainly _there_ , built around her consciousness and impenetrable to his advance. Taken aback, Ben pressed at that barrier with increased pressure. But it was no use. Ben couldn't get _in._

"What are you _doing_?" he heard Rey snarl, and his eyes opened to lock with hers. 

Ben frowned. It had been a while since he'd used the Force, granted, but it was odd that it wasn't working –

Having run out of things to throw, Rey apparently decided that the next thing she could hurl at Ben was herself, because one second she was across the room, and the next she was directly on him. As her body collided with his, he realised with a jolt that she was _climbing_ him – her thighs were clamped around his middle in an iron grip, and she was using the leverage the position gave her to hit him about the head with her bare fists. 

If Ben had been a bystander, he would have been impressed by her nerve, but the blows she was landing on him were starting to hurt. He spun them both around until he found a wall at Rey's back, and in one swift movement, he had her trapped between it and his body. 

There was a brief silence then, Rey finally pausing to just breathe. Ben had her completely pinned against the wall, holding her there with his body against hers and one of her hands by the wrist above her head. The only space between them was the mere inches between their faces, and they were so close Ben could see every one of her freckles and how much green she had in her hazel eyes. 

He cleared his throat. "You're not fighting to injure," he said softly. 

She scowled at him, never breaking eye contact. "What's your point?"

"You'll never win a fight that way," he continued. "You can't overcome an opponent twice your size completely unarmed, even if you are using – an unusual technique." He glanced down pointedly at where she was still straddling his waist. 

Rey's eyes followed his downwards, but unlike his, hers stayed there. A feeling oddly like regret stabbed at Ben. With her looking down, refusing to meet his gaze, he could no longer see her hazel eyes. 

"I didn't ask for your advice," she muttered. "But since you offered it – thanks for the tip."

And she unsheathed his belt knife with her free hand and jerked it upwards. 

It was a testament to how surprised Ben was that his mind played the scene like he was watching from Rey's point of view – how he saw the blade slice across the right side of his own face, opening a thin track of red in his own skin. But then the sting jolted him back into his own scope of vision and he stepped back involuntarily, letting Rey drop to her feet with a light thud. 

She was staring at him, hazel eyes wide in shock. Ben's knife fell from her hand in a clatter and she moved towards him, lips parting. "Kylo – " 

And then Finn came up behind her to club her over the head with a dismembered table leg, and Rey crumpled to the ground in a heap. 

Ben snapped at the knight. "What did you do that for?" He bent down to resheathe his knife and shifted Rey into his arms so that he could check the back of her head. A lump was rapidly forming, but Finn thankfully hadn't broken the skin.

"What do you mean, what did I do that for?" Finn spluttered. "She was _attacking_ you, Your Highness! Did you see her?"

"Oh, I saw her," said Ben, more to himself than to anyone else. He looked down at the motionless girl. Again, she looked so small. Almost birdlike, and vulnerable. He sighed and stood up, the girl in his arms weighing almost nothing. 

Finn gaped at him. "Sire – Sir Kylo – your face – "

"A scratch," said Ben shortly. "Let's get out of here."

*** 

Ben didn't follow Finn back to Coruscant. As they were riding back to Niima, Ben keeping a firm hold on the still-unconscious scavenger draped across the saddle in front of him, they crossed paths with a goods wagon en route to the capital. Finn negotiated passage back to the city for himself, his horse, and the girl, and Ben carefully moved her from Arte's back to the open-roofed wagon. 

He had better things to do than to help babysit a wild, feral girl-thing for two days on the road back to where he didn't want to be. He had a bridge to help build in Niima, and he was planning to move on to a neighbouring fief in a few days to see what could be done about their bandit problem. He was _not,_ and in his thoughts he placed great emphasis on the word, going to travel aimlessly back to Coruscant with this girl who had just cut up his face.

"Sir Kylo?" Finn interrupted him. "Thank you for – your assistance. It was – a good thing you were there."

Ben nodded. He didn't ask Finn how he was going to handle Rey when she woke up. He didn't ask what was Finn's plan, if he had one, or how he was going to stop Rey from running off at any point during the journey. It wasn't Ben's problem. Maybe in a few weeks when he returned to Coruscant he'd find Rey wandering around the palace somewhere, or maybe she'd be spirited away to one of his lord's lands by then. Or maybe she'd overcome Finn like she nearly overcame him and she'd escape. 

It didn't _matter._

It wasn't Ben's _problem_. 

He thought that she might feel uncomfortable, dead to the world among sacks and barrels of flour, so he unfastened his cloak and tucked it around her head and shoulders. Then he bid Finn goodbye and rode the rest of the way back to Niima at a gallop. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love feral Rey and reluctant Ben. Things are getting interesting - or at least I hope you guys are finding it so! Comments are kudos are always appreciated :)


	4. gem uncovered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: A little POV switch over to our heroine

The first thing Rey noticed when she came to was that she was on a moving cart. The second was that her head really, really hurt. 

Her nose filled with the scent of something spicy and distinctly like cinnamon, coming from the unfamiliar cloak bunched around her shoulders. A small groan escaped her before she forced her eyes open and tried to sit up. 

"Hey, take it easy," a voice said, and Rey stared at the man in front of her for a second before she placed him. Immediately her hackles went up, and he must have seen that, because he quickly put his hands up in a placating gesture. "Please don't do anything drastic."

She was on an open-backed wagon loaded with sacks and barrels – and apparently, just her and the knight Finn. The other man – the far more intimidating one – was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's your friend?" she asked suspiciously, sitting up.

"He didn't come with us," said Finn. "Can I get you anything, Rey? Would you like a drink of water?"

Rey's fingers had found the huge bump on the back of her head. "Who knocked me out?"

Finn grimaced, and then said, "He did."

Of course he had, that big giant arsehole of a man. Rey had always been good at reading people, and while Finn had given her a harmless, eager-to-please impression, something about the other knight had just thrown her off.

Like how he hadn't even really been fighting back against her, and how he'd inexplicably stopped in the middle of their tussle to close his eyes and wave a hand in front of her face. She had remembered feeling guilty when she'd slashed his face without meaning to, but now she was feeling a little better about it. 

Rey got to her feet. It was a difficult feat on a moving wagon with a pounding head, but she managed it anyway. The road they were on was lined on either side with proper forest trees, the kinds that formed a patterned canopy with their lush green leaves. Rey swallowed against the lump that had formed in her throat. 

Logically, she knew they couldn't have been more than an hour or two into their journey. It wasn't like the whole of the northern region of Alderaan was a barren wasteland; only Jakku had the honour of that distinction. But irrationally, the greenery surrounding her signified one thing, loud and insistent –

Rey was the furthest from home she'd ever been. 

"Rey?" Finn's voice cut into her reverie. "I need you to hear me out."

Rey tore her eyes away from the road and looked back at Finn. Maybe she was tired. Or maybe the deep-rooted compulsion to stay in Jakku had worn off now that she had actually left it. Slowly, she sat back down. 

Finn looked relieved. "Thank you," he said. "So, Rey. First off, this isn't a hoax. I'm really a knight of the realm, and there is really a royal summons on you. This could have been filed from anyone in the court, but it means that if you don't comply, you're disobeying the queen's orders. And that's a crime." He waited a beat, probably for dramatic effect. "Which is why, Rey, I'm asking you to just come back to court with me. You haven't done anything wrong, but if you run off, you'll be an outlaw anywhere in Alderaan."

Rey knew this. Any subject of Alderaan would, really. She just… hadn't been thinking about it when she attacked Finn and Kylo earlier in her little hut. Rey had always stayed on the right side of the law, even when times were tough. She'd never had knights of the realm or even the local provost looking for her before. The sort of people who usually came to her door were the less than savoury kinds, and Rey had had a lifetime of fighting them off to know how to react any differently. 

"And – " Finn looked hesitant, but he continued on anyway. "I reckon it doesn't make much difference to you, Rey, but I really need this task to work out. It's my first assignment that isn't gate forest patrol or manning the gate, and I was kind of hoping I wouldn't mess it up."

Rey looked at Finn, really looked at him. He had a strong forehead and a stubborn chin, but his face was kind, and right now it looked more anxious than anything else. Considering the trouble she'd already given him, he would be more than justified tying her up and calling in an armed escort, but it was just him, her, and whomever was driving this wagon full of goods. 

She stuck out her hand. "Hi," she said. "I'm Rey."

Finn blinked, but took her proffered hand all the same. "Nice to meet you, Rey."

***

Rey and Finn settled down into an easy companionship after that. Finn said he really didn't know why Rey had been summoned to Coruscant, and she believed him, so they moved on to other topics – mostly about Finn, his wife Lady Rose, and his life as a knight in Coruscant. 

"Did you always want to be a knight?" Rey asked.

"Not always," said Finn. "I was raised by my aunt and uncle who were… traitors to the realm, actually." He offered a small smile. "They were using their position to sell illegal weapons – very untoward behaviour for nobility, I know. I was just a child when they were found out, and I was a bit lost, but then it was suggested I try for a knighthood and serve the crown – so I was sent to the palace to start training as a page."

So Finn, too, had come from a less than perfect background – but where she was in her life compared to Finn were miles apart. Rey swallowed and chased the thought away. 

"What about you?" said Finn, although she heard the note of caution in his voice. "How did you end up in Jakku?"

She smiled faintly. "What gave it away?" she asked. "I could've been born there."

He shrugged. "You have an accent. It's hard to place, and it's hard to figure out where it's from, but you sure don't sound like anyone in Jakku. You'd think you grew up somewhere like Coruscant."

She laughed. "Because folk in the city speak however they wish and won't be caught dead revealing the rural pockets where they're really from? Perhaps. My first memories are of me in Jakku. I was probably born there and just talk really funny."

Finn cleared his throat. "You never had anyone to ask?"

Rey let her eyes wander back to the passing trees, the softly waving branches. "No."

Finn refrained from asking Rey any more personal questions after that. They stopped once to rest the horses and had a midday meal with their wagon driver, a quiet but pleasant-faced middle-aged man. According to Finn, they would rest at an inn for the night at a town called Crait and would reach Coruscant by sunset the next day. 

It was nearing dark when they pulled up to the inn at Crait, but Rey couldn't tell whether it was because the day was ending or because of the thick clouds that had gathered overhead. She jumped off the wagon just as the first drops of rain began to fall, and she held a hand out to try and catch the patter of it on her fingers. It was then that she remembered the cloak that she had been wearing the whole day, the spicy smell of it now thoroughly familiar to her. 

"Did you want this back?" she called to Finn, but stopped short when she realised that he had a cloak of his own draped around him. It had been remiss of her not to notice earlier. But Finn had already heard her, and so he answered her question. 

"It's not mine," he said. "Keep it. And let's go inside before we get soaked."

She pulled the cloak closer around her shoulders and followed him into the inn. 

The rest of the night passed without event. Rey was shown into a small room of her own with its own little fireplace, and after washing in the bath the servants drew her she went down to eat dinner with Finn. She slept soundly and in the morning their party left without anyone the wiser that this was Rey's first time being served at an inn in her life.

Their second day on the road carried on much like the first, with Finn telling Rey so many adoring stories about his wife that Rey longed to meet her. They stopped again for the midday meal, and then the hours flew by and before Rey knew it the thick foliage lining the side of the road started dwindling.When they turned a sharp corner on the high road they were on, there were soon no trees at all – and from that vantage point Rey laid eyes on the city of Coruscant for the first time in her life. 

It was breathtaking. Scores of red-brown roofs made of tiles, not clay or thatch, glinting in the pre-dusk light, covering houses and buildings that were kept small because they were built on a series of slopes. Winding roads that she could see were made of grey cobblestone even from the distance. And these roads, these slopes, all led up to the magnificent stone palace set deep into a cliff overlooking the emerald Alderaan sea. 

All of a sudden, going from Jakku to Coruscant felt like walking from one dream to another. Every moment, Jakku was beginning to seem more and more like a quiet nightmare she'd spent too long not waking up from. And now, Coruscant looked like a dream city conjured out of a fairytale. She reached under her cloak to give herself a hard pinch and winced. 

  
No, this was really happening, and in less than an hour Rey of Jakku was going to walk into the capital city of Alderaan – and she was going to face whatever was coming with her eyes wide open and her head held high.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway through working on this in the past week I went and wrote an insanely fluffy modern AU fic based on a reylo prompt, so if you're here from that, hello, or if you haven't and like hairbraiding reylo, here's [say it with a braid](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24129664/chapters/58094446).
> 
> Let me know what you guys think about hearing Rey's side of things and if you'd like to see more of it! Thank you for reading so far! <3


	5. drifting wood

Every time Ben returned to Coruscant from one of his travels, it was always with this odd feeling settling in his chest. It wasn't anything as drastic as dread or unhappiness, but closer to – resignation. A reluctant knowledge that he was tethered here, to the seat of his one-day throne – that no matter how hard or how far he rode, he would still have to come back and claim it.

He just wished that it would feel a bit more like coming home. Some place where he was both known _and_ accepted.

On the road, no-one knew who he was under the mantle of Kylo Ren, but they accepted him; after all, there wasn't anything particularly objectionable about a helpful knight errant. In court as Prince Benjamin, everyone knew him, but they didn't accept him. Even after twelve years spent trying to scrub out the mistakes of his past, he knew his subjects still watched him with a wary eye. 

Because when people looked at him, they didn't see a quiet man nearing thirty who tried desperately to fulfill his role while staying away from public exposure. When people looked at Prince Benjamin Solo, they still saw the power-crazed, fury-driven boy he had been at seventeen, and they still remembered everything that had happened with Luke and Snoke and the whole damned kingdom watching. 

Now Luke had fucked off, Snoke was gone, and Ben was here, still picking up the pieces over a decade later. And that was fine. Because things were better now. He had mended his relationship with his parents, he carried out every single one of the royal duties that were required of him, and each waking moment he worked to make sure that the once-angry voices in his head were merely whispered remnants of darker days. 

Yes, things were better.

He should really just leave it at that. 

Ben's suspicions were first aroused when he rode into the palace courtyard and was immediately and boisterously greeted by Lord Poe Dameron. Ben was only back in Coruscant because he'd received a short and uninformative missive from his mother summoning him, and the fact that Poe was here to welcome him meant that Poe was aware of this. 

Something was up. 

"Your Highness!" shouted Poe as Ben eased Arte into a halt. "The dashing Prince Ben, back from his latest adventure!" 

Brash, lively, and altogether charming, Lord Poe of House Dameron was everything Ben was not – but he was also possibly the only friend Ben had. This was largely due to the fact that since their days growing up as children at court, Poe had made the decision to laugh at Ben instead of cower away from him like everyone else – a dynamic of their friendship that remained until today. 

"I'd hardly call tracking a measly band of bandits eyebrow-deep in mud an adventure," muttered Ben as he dismounted. Almost as soon as his feet reached the ground, a hostler appeared to lead Arte away. Of course. He was back at court. 

"Seasons above, Ben, what happened to your face?" demanded Poe. 

It had been about two weeks since the hazel-eyed scavenger girl had left her mark on him; the wound was mostly healed, but it was still clearly red and visible on his face. Ben wasn't even sure if it would go away completely. He hadn't really had the best facilities in terms of having it looked at, so it was possible that it would leave a permanent scar. 

Which was great. 

"Nothing exciting," he said, off-handedly. "Why did my mother summon me back?"

Poe widened his eyes in what he evidently thought was a convincing manner. "And what makes you think I would know that?"

Ben gave him a look. "You don't make a habit of waiting at the arrivals courtyard every time I come back to Coruscant. You know something."

Before Poe could respond, a footman in the queen's livery appeared at Ben's elbow. "Your Highness," he said, bowing. "The queen requests your presence in her study immediately."

Ben felt his eyebrows raise slightly in spite of himself. His mother wasn't even giving him time to wash off the grime of the road. 

Poe shot him in an innocent-looking grin. "Guess you'll find out soon enough." He stepped in and clapped Ben on the back, a gesture that Ben didn't reciprocate – but this was normal for them. Poe didn't mind – that's why they got along. "Later then, Solo. It's good to have you back."

Ben made his way to Leia's quarters, sticking out like a sore thumb with his shabby replacement cloak and travel-stained appearance amongst all the bustling palace folk. Before long he was being let through the door of the queen's private study, where his mother was sitting at her desk by the window, looking over a document in her hand. 

This was an ordinary enough sight. What made Ben stop short, however, was the realisation that his father was also in the room. Han Solo may have married into Alderaan royalty, but he was a commoner through and through, and an outdoorsy one at that. His father was rarely caught indoors in the middle of a perfectly sunny day; skulking in the corner of Leia's study meant solely for official business was an even rarer occurrence. 

"What's going on?" he demanded, at the exact same moment both Han and Leia exclaimed, "What happened to your face?"

Ben clenched his jaw. Yes, it had been awhile since anyone had even come close to leaving a scratch on him in combat, so he knew he would be asked about his face over the next few days. But it didn't make the whole situation any less irritating – especially when his mind irrationally stumbled over the memory of defiant hazel eyes each time his scar was brought up. 

"Nothing of importance," he said, trying to keep the words from sounding curt in his deeply timbred voice. He looked again from his mother to his father, trying to get a read on the room. "What's going on?"

Queen Leia of House Organa looked at him and sighed. In her youth, she had been considered a great beauty, and the trademarks of her allure were still there despite the passage of time. Her eyes were as dark and lovely even with the crow's feet around them, and her hair was as thick as ever even though it had turned almost completely grey. But of course Leia was known, back then and now, for more than just her looks; she was a formidable figure on the throne of Alderaan, blessed with the diplomatic flair her son had never inherited and her own special brand of humorous wit. 

"It's big news, I'll admit," she said – uncharacteristically, thought Ben, because when had his mother not cut straight to the chase before? "Have a seat, Ben."

Ben didn't move. His eyes slid over to the tall and currently silent figure of his father. Ben had gotten both those traits from him – the height, and the stubborn habit of having nothing to say unless it was something that would likely get the speaker in a considerable amount of trouble. 

Han jerked his head lightly at a chaise in the middle of the room. "You'll really wanna sit down for this one, kid."

Ben sat.

The queen took a deep breath. "Benjamin, what do you recall of the Palpatine line?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is late because some life stuff caught up with me last week – I don't know if it's necessary to apologise but I thought I would just in case some of you noticed! Also AO3's email situation happened – I don't actually know how most of you are finding/keeping tabs on this fic but I really hope all subscriber emails turn back to normal soon because mine aren't and I'm spending way too much time trawling twitter to track down all my favourite fic updates.
> 
> Also I do realise this chapter is a bit shorter than usual and ends on a little cliffhanger, but we'll jump straight back into things when the next much-longer chapter goes up in a few days. In fact, most of the chapters should be a lot longer moving forward and I really hope that's going to be okay (I promise we'll get back to Ben and Rey soon I'm sorry it's taking so long aflkajd. Lastly, I'm also coming to terms with the fact that this whole fic might be a lot longer than 11 chapters as originally planned. WHAT AM I DOING


	6. map unearthed

_ Palpatine _ . "The imperial family of Exegol?" said Ben, slowly.

Leia nodded. "That's the one."

Ben looked at her. He was absolutely certain that whatever second-hand knowledge he had on the royal line of Exegol was not going to be news to his mother, but she didn't say anything more, so he went on like he was back in one of his lessons as a boy. 

"House Palpatine traditionally rules the empire of Exegol," he recited. "But Exegol has… strict laws when it comes to the inheritance of the crown, so the throne has been empty for the last few generations, with the empire ruled by a council of regents instead." He shook his head. "Exegol has always been overly bound by its laws and traditions. Honestly, the power it grants to its monarchs is laughable in the face of the restrictions that come with it." 

"Cut the commentary and stick to the facts, please, Benjamin."

Idly, he took his belt knife out to finger with its blade, keeping his hands occupied while he made the mental trip back to the history books. "Alternatively, one could argue that the ascension issues are due to the fact that there exists a Palpatine line no longer," he continued. "Nearly two decades ago, the crown prince and princess of Exegol died in a tragic accident – here in Alderaan, unfortunately. Their only child, who was with them during the unhappy incident, was never found, and has long since been presumed dead." He looked up from his knife, meeting his mother's gaze and holding it with his. "Why?"

Leia's eyes flitted to Han's, almost as if to seek encouragement, which was again yet another thing that she didn't normally do. Ben was starting to feel the beginnings of absolute frustration building up, but luckily Leia spoke before he did. 

"She's not dead."

Ben blinked. "The child?" 

A twitch of Leia's lips put something of a smile on her otherwise serious face. "She's not a child anymore, Ben." She cleared her throat. "She's alive, she's of age, and she has been found at last. Princess Eraina is the direct heir to the throne of the Exegol empire."

Ben let out a low whistle, momentarily surprised out of his growing annoyance. "That's news indeed," he murmured. Although much smaller than Alderaan, the diplomatic ties between the two realms went far back. "So, are we attending a coronation soon?" 

Han and Leia shared another  _ look _ , and all of Ben's misgivings came trickling back. "No," said Leia, slowly. "Unfortunately, there are complications on that front."

"Well, she's female," Ben acknowledged, flipping his knife up into the air and catching it. "But she's the sole heir to the throne, and that makes a difference, even in Exegol." 

Laws of inheritance were more relaxed here in Alderaan – a fact that could be seen multiple times over in its current royal family. Leia was a noble Skywalker by blood, but she had been adopted into the royal house of Organa at birth and it was under this name that she had been raised to inherit the throne. Ben too would inherit the crown as a child of the house Organa, although for his own name he had taken his father's – the one-time smuggler without a drop of noble blood in his veins whom Leia had caused quite a scandal by marrying. 

But Leia was already shaking her head. "It's not that, Ben," she said. "The issue isn't that she's a girl. It's that she has the Force." 

Ben finally stopped playing with this blade. "Ah," he said, because he saw the problem now. 

Exegol didn't like the Force. The Palpatine line was notorious for producing the odd Force-sensitive royal who would then promptly turn out to be some mad tyrant. At some point in history, the empire had had enough, and a special council was formed to decree that if a royal was one with the Force, they wouldn't be allowed to inherit the crown. Emperor Sheev Palpatine – the grandfather of the girl in question, and the last Palpatine to have been on the throne – had been discovered to be hiding the fact that he was Force-sensitive during his reign. 

The people of the empire had beheaded him. 

To be fair, he was responsible for a myriad of crimes and had committed many murders during his time as a monarch, but one thing was for sure – no Force-sensitive imperial could ascend the Exegol throne. They would be lucky to be left alive. 

Ben slid his knife back into its sheath. "Out with it, Leia," he said. "What does this have to do with us?" 

"The girl was found here in Alderaan," said the queen, cutting to the chase at last. "She was discovered up north and brought back here to the palace. Regent Councillor Obi Wan Kenobi arrived from Exegol two days ago and the two of them have met."

Ben leaned forward. "And he is satisfied that it is her?"

Leia nodded. "He is," she said. She glanced at Han, and then swallowed. "And so are we," she added softly. "She takes after Kira. Looks just like her. Her eyes, her face… even her voice. But she has Jinn's hair, and his manner. The girl is somehow just the splitting image of them both and I cried my eyes out when I saw her."

Ben frowned. "You never told me we were looking for the lost princess."

Leia glared. "Of course we were looking for her," she said. "She was lost on Alderaan soil, and we never found a body – how could we give up the search? But it's been  _ years _ , and there were so many false leads, and now finally, finally, we've found her – "

"Alright, alright," said Ben hastily, rubbing at his temples. He closed his eyes. "So let me guess. Councillor Kenobi won't be taking her back with him to Exegol. He wants us to give her safe harbour, here at Alderaan court."

There was a silence. Ben kept his eyes closed and took a deep breath. "Mother, if I see you and Da shooting meaningful looks at each other  _ one more time _ – "

"There was an agreement," said Leia abruptly. "A pact between the late Emperor Palpatine and your grandfather – my birth father."

Vaguely, somewhere in the depths of Ben's memory, a recollection stirred. Like a piece of knowledge that was buried deep there when he was a child, but forgotten. A  _ pact _ , Leia said. Between Anakin Skywalker and Sheev Palpatine.

His eyes flew open. "No."

"Ben – "

"An arranged marriage is not a  _ pact _ ," he snarled, getting to his feet. "That is an  _ archaic  _ tradition with  _ binding  _ consequences on the people who have to enter into it!"

"Ben," said Han. "Sit down and hear your mother out."

"She's not exactly been forthcoming so far!" Ben snapped. He walked over to the window and looked out of it, schooling himself into deep breaths. His temper was one of his many faults, and he knew it. 

"Your grandfather and Palpatine entered into an arrangement," Leia continued quietly. "When Eraina was born, Sheev decided to take precautions, in case she later turned out to be Force-sensitive. Anakin Skywalker promised him that if it turned out Eraina required sanctuary away from Exegol, it would be provided for in the form of a marital union."

Ben shook his head. "If Sheev was looking for a Skywalker-Palpatine union, I don't even bear the Skywalker name."

"Anakin specifically used yours. Benjamin Organa-Solo. His only grandson by birth. You were ten at the time."

Ben stiffened. "Mother. He  _ used _ – " He stopped. "Tell me this wasn't put down in writing."

"Kenobi brought the scroll with him."

"It wouldn't hold  up. Your adoption would have broken the chain of obligation – "

"We're not talking about technicalities here, Ben," said Leia, and Ben heard a slight edge to her voice despite her obvious attempts at being gentle. "A regent of Exegol is here at court and he wants to know if we will honour our treaty to accept the exiled princess' hand in marriage."

And there it was. Ben stood still as he felt the fury drain out of him and a familiar weight settle on his shoulders in its place. Honour. Duty. Obligation. Call it what you wished, but Ben had been saddled with it in all its forms his entire life. And if it now came hurtling at him full-speed in the guise of a marriage contract, then it had just gotten creative over the years. 

His father's voice cut through his obsidian thoughts. "Ben," said Han. "Come sit down."

Ben vaguely registered that all three times Han had spoken throughout this entire interview was to ask him to sit down, and he forced his legs to take him back to the chaise to do as his father asked. 

"Let's talk about this, Ben," said Leia, in her best maternal-sounding voice. "You know that if you were truly opposed to this marriage, we would never make you go through with it. You have to know that." Ben didn't say anything, so she ploughed on. "We know you've been very – reticent about your relationships," Leia continued. "If there is anyone – a man or a woman – " 

Ben laughed once, hoarse and humourless. 

"Is there, Ben? Are you in love with someone?"

"No." Ben never did things by halves, which meant the type of meaningless relations favoured by so many in his court and out of it had never found appeal with him. But on the question of love, he was pretty certain that with the exception of the two other people in this room, no-one had ever felt it for him – and there was a time when he wasn't even sure if they did. 

"Because you know," Leia continued, "if you had strings attached, it wouldn't be very fair to Eraina, to have a mistress on on the side – "

_ "Mother,"  _ said Ben, the beginnings of a massive headache beginning to throb at his temples. "I do not have a mistress. And I don't need you to tell me what my obligations are – "

Leia bristled. "I don't think so," she began. "You young men always think you have the right to do all sorts of sordid things, and I can tell you that no son of  _ mine – _ " 

"And what does _Princess_ _Eraina_ think of this?" demanded Ben, cutting her off.

"You can find that out yourself, when you meet her," said Leia. "But she's been… adjusting. She's not – she hasn't been around nobility, very much."

Which probably meant that she was confused and timid and terrified out half out of her wits, thought Ben tiredly. If she had been brought up by common folk, he could only imagine what being thrust directly into royalty and all it entailed would be like for her. But something in his mother's voice alerted him to an observation. 

"You like her," he accused. 

Leia smiled. "I do," she said. "But as I said, you'll see when you meet her yourself. And Ben. We promise. There's no… being forced into this. You can meet her, and we'll make our decisions from there. All of us, together. Your father and I are not going to let any unwanted marriages take place, legacy agreements or not."

"Sure," said Ben, sardonically. "When are  _ Eraina _ and I meeting?" He didn't know why he said her name like that, he just felt like it. Like biting words and snide emphases could take the edge off what was happening. 

Once again Leia hesitated, and Ben's eyes narrowed. "What now?" he wanted to know. 

"I'm sure, given the circumstances, you and the princess would wish to get acquainted in private – and there will be time for that later," said Leia. "But I'm afraid Councillor Kenobi is insisting that your first introduction be… witnessed."

Ben stared at Leia, and the queen sighed. "It's an Exegol tradition," she elaborated. "They're a very stoic people, and they have rules that need to be followed, given that – "

"Given that the introduction of a betrothed couple requires an audience," Ben finished for her flatly. "And in Kenobi's eyes, the princess and I are already betrothed." He swore quietly under his breath. "What was that about us making the decisions afterwards, legacy agreements or not?"

"What Kenobi thinks – or what a piece of paper written by two dead men – is of no concern to me," said Leia coolly. "I meant what I said." 

Ben ran his hand through his hair. "The agreement was made," he said. "Even if we argue that it isn't an official marriage treaty, breaching it could marr our relations with Exegol beyond – "

"So be it then," said Leia, her voice raising ever so slightly. "Do not take me for a fool, Benjamin, I am not here to be schooled. You will meet the Princess Eraina in public, for formality's sake, and you will have plenty of opportunity to get acquainted with her after. And if anyone wants to break off the engagement from thereon, we will. Marred relations or not. Are we clear?" 

The queen stared Ben down until he finally gave in and rubbed a hand over his face. "Alright," he said, at last. "Alright. When do we meet?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! Also, I think I'm going to up the chapter count. It may change again (either less or more) and I apologise but y'know, WIPs are gonna WIP. Thank you for reading so far! Sending everyone out there my thoughts and care, I hope you're all staying safe, healthy, and compassionate during these times. 
> 
> PS I've also been sitting on this modern reylo meetcute oneshot for awhile that I may post up sometime next week, so keep an eye out if you're interested xx @reylo_mo


	7. granite spark

Ben really didn't think that he and Eraina would be meeting so soon. 

Yes, as Leia had pointed out, if their first introduction had to be witnessed, there was no point putting it off since Ben and Eraina were under the same roof – even if that roof was an enormous palace. All the same, Ben thought that he would have a little bit of time between finding out that he was going to marry a strange foreign princess and actually having to meet said strange foreign princess.

But here he was, stomach growling, still dripping from the hurried bath where he'd violently scrubbed the dirt off his skin. Standing in front of his armoire, trying to ascertain what one wore when they were meeting their betrothed for the first time. 

And he was already late. 

_No black,_ Leia had said warningly. _It's a possible engagement, not a promised burial._ Ben swore and grabbed the next best thing – the darkest blue tunic he had, trimmed at the collar and hems with fine silver threading. He'd actually supplied the royal dressmaker with the embroidery design for that one. Ben usually had a hand in making every garment he owned because it was one of the few ways he could exercise some control in his life. No-one noticed, though. Like his mother, they probably just thought he wore too much black. 

His eyes strayed to the window and he realised how much lower the sun had already sunk in the sky. The crown prince of Alderaan swore again. Now he was really late. 

***

  
  


"Very tardy," observed Poe from a few straggled paces behind him as they went hurtling along the corridors. "Makes a smashing first impression."

"Shut it," growled Ben. They finally reached the western courtyard where he was to meet the princess of Exegol at last. "Where are they?"

"Well, judging from that small congregation of about two dozen people over there – "

Ben stared at what was indeed a small cluster of people crowding on the raised balcony at the far edge of the courtyard. " _Why_ are they there?" He gestured at all the space around where he and Poe were standing. "What's wrong with right here?"

"Well, I suppose here there are no overhanging trees branches, with the breeze from being on a cliff, and the sun setting in the background – " 

Clenching his fist and then carefully unclenching it, Ben started towards the far end of the courtyard. He felt as highly strung as if he was striding into battle, which honestly didn't bode well. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins, and he forced himself to tamp down on the rush. He needed to be calmer for this. More collected. 

Soon he reached the first of the steps that led to the little section of the courtyard that extended out from the cliff they were on. The palace was an architectural marvel, built on an upward slope from the rest of the city and next to the sea, and there were plenty of these little nooks around that were designed with the brilliant views in mind. Ben's own rooms had balconies that faced out to the best of the sea views. 

Ben climbed one step. Another. 

The first thing in his field of vision as he reached the platform was his mother's disapproving face beside his father's bemused one. But Ben focused his gaze on the slight figure standing across from his parents, with the formidable Regent of Exegol positioned just behind her.

The girl – his future bride – was covered from head to toe, and Ben being Ben took instant note of her attire. She was dressed in a traditional Exegol dress meant for high nobility, made of stiff, unforgiving material that hung heavy to the wrists and ankles. Her face was partially hidden under an equally stiff and gauzy veil, but as Ben grew closer, he could see that her eyes were downcast, fixed on the ground. Understandable, if she was nervous – or prolonging the moments before she was forced to look at him.

Finally, Ben's feet carried him to stand in front of his future bride. He stopped and made a bow from the waist. "Princess Eraina," he said, as he straightened. "It is my – " 

The words died on his lips. Because both he and the princess were looking up now, at each other, and even with the gauzy veil and liberal amounts of kohl around her lashes, he knew those bright hazel eyes. Knew exactly where he had seen them before.

Ben drew in a deep breath at the exact same moment the princess hissed out hers.

" _You_ ," she said, those damned hazel eyes of hers widening. Something remarkably like fury was creeping into her voice and her features. " _You're_ the crown prince of Alderaan?"

Ben blinked, slightly unprepared for the animosity emanating from her. " _You're_ the crown princess of Exegol?"

Behind him, he could hear his mother groan. 

"You – " she took a step forward, and he could _feel_ the silent apprehension building in the small number of spectators around them. "You _hit_ me unconscious!" 

"Right," he said, and for a second he thought her anger justified, until he remembered clearly that it wasn't. "Wait, no. That's not what happened. Finn did that."

"That's funny," she said, and he could see the fight sparking in her eyes now. "Because he told me you did that."

Of course he did. Finn had to _survive_ the ride back to Coruscant with this absolute fireball of a woman, and Ben was conveniently miles away knee-deep in mud. "I… " With difficulty, he wrenched his eyes away from her burning glare and remembered where they were. "Your Highness, this isn't the time or place. Perhaps – "

She wasn't done. She took another step towards him, and one of the nobles watching actually let out a gasp. Rey's head jerked slightly towards the sound, and then, as if in defiance, she yanked off her veil and looked at Ben full in the face. "Nice scar," she said sweetly. 

At this point Ben had completely lost his train of thought. He stared down at her face, which would have been some mere inches away had it not been for the stark disparity in their heights, and just looked at her. Despite someone's heavy-handed efforts with powder, paint, and rouge, she looked just as he remembered from the junkyard from Jaaku. Her fine cheekbones, that smattering of freckles across her nose and under her eyes, and those heavy-lashed hazel eyes, ablaze with fire as they bore into his. 

Gods, he was going to _marry_ her. 

A pointedly cleared throat made Ben reluctantly tear his eyes away from Rey, but Rey was less subtle – she whipped her whole body around to glare at its source, Regent Obi Wan Kenobi. Thankfully, though, she didn't say anything, and the regent opened his mouth before either Ben or Rey had another disastrous shot at speaking. 

"Perhaps this introduction is not going… as expected," said Kenobi dryly. "Might it be a good idea if we resumed conversation indoors?" 

Ben was the first to notice that Rey had gone utterly still. He didn't know how or what gave it away, because she wasn't even faced towards him, but he was overcome with the need to make sure she was alright. He stepped forward and placed a hand on her back. "Your Highness, are you – " He stopped. He was right next to her now, and he could see that she was definitely not alright. Her face was strained, her lips were parted, and she was holding a hand up, as if searching for something to hold on to. 

"Rey," said Ben urgently, as her hand landed on his arm. For a moment, both Ben and Rey stared at it, her touch on his upper sleeve – Ben's gaze pierced with concern, Rey's almost unseeing. And then the princess' eyes fluttered shut and she keeled over in a dead faint. 

Ben had decades of fight training to thank as he caught his fiancée before she fell, oblivious to the gasps and even screams from the excitable courtiers around them. Already, guards had closed ranks around Han and Leia, as well as Regent Kenobi, anticipating some sort of attack. Quickly, he lowered her to the ground, his eyes raking over her body to search for signs of injury. If this really was an assault, or if someone had tried to poison her – Ben had to wrestle with a quick and sudden fury that had risen in the pit of his stomach. 

_She's not hurt_ , a voice in his head said – _his_ own internal voice, he realised with some discomfiture. _She can't breathe_. 

Almost disbelievingly, he bent down to put his ear over her mouth and nose. Rey's breaths were faint and shallow. 

"Hey," said Poe, appearing crouched at Ben's elbow. "Let's go. We need to get you two out of here." 

"She's not hurt," murmured Ben, almost like he needed to say the words out loud. "She can't breathe." 

"Sire," began Poe again, but Ben wasn't listening to him. His eyes roved down to Rey's chest, and the waistline of her dress, which suddenly looked impossibly small to him. He knew from her outfit at the junkyard that Rey was a slim-waisted woman, but…

As if of their own volition, Ben's hands moved to Rey's back, where they were met with the tightly done laces of her bodice. He began to grapple with the laces. 

"Sire." Had Ben bothered to look up, he would have seen Poe's eyes go as big as saucers. "What are you doing." 

"She just needs some air," growled Ben, working at the laces at the back of Rey's dress with mounting frustration. "This dratted contraption is a torture device."

"Right, so maybe this isn't the best place to – oh, oh gods." 

Tired of fighting with binding that wouldn't give, Ben curled his arms around Rey, gripped her bodice firmly with both his hands, and ripped the back of her garment open. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand we've finally reached the scene of the summary. Dear readers, I am so very sorry it took us 9k words to get here and I thank you deeply for your patience. Thank you so much for the comments you've been sending my way, I love to hear from you! It's been a draining week for me personally, and while I didn't get to write much this week (I hope this won't be reflected in next week's chapter), I did appreciate the solace that it gave me. 
> 
> Hope you all are doing well and safe, and speaking out for the things you believe in wherever you are. xxx


	8. grinding edges

The first thing Rey thought when she came to was that she was never going to let anyone bully her into such a ridiculously tight dress ever again. Even if she was a brand-new princess and that was something princesses were expected to do. 

Her second thought was that the person who was carrying her in his arms as if she weighed nothing must be very strong. As her vision slid into better focus, she took one look at the prominent jaw and wavy hair of her handler and jolted upright in panic. 

"Put me down!" she cried, her cheeks flushing with warmth as the whole scene of their meeting came flooding back to her mind's eye. Stars, she had behaved abominably, but she had really been woefully prepared for the whole thing. She raised a fist and pounded it against his broad chest in protest, but he didn't even flinch. Which made sense, because it was like her hand was meeting with a hard rock. 

Sir Kylo – Prince Ben – whatever her fiancé's name was – looked down his too-long nose at her with something remarkably like indifference. "No," he said shortly, and that was all he had to offer. He continued his pace along the open courtyard with long, purposeful strides. 

Rey made to pull herself upright in his hold, but this was made difficult by the fact that he was holding her as far away from his body as possible, through an almost comic extension of his arms. Prince Ben was clearly ridiculously strong, and, despite the fact that he had her right in his arms, seemed extremely unkeen on touching her more than absolutely necessary. 

The prince didn't stop until they were well out of the courtyard, through two sets of doors, and had finally arrived at what seemed to be a private sitting-room of some kind. At least, that's what Rey assumed it was when Prince Ben carefully set her down on her feet at last. Even though she had been at the palace for two weeks now, it boggled her mind that there could be a building that large and with that many different rooms in, all for different uses. 

And now they were both just standing there in silence, quite a number of feet apart, the prince having been very quick to put that distance between them the instant he had let go of her.

Rey wanted to say something, anything, but she was overcome with embarrassment. Her mysterious royal fiancé turned out to be someone she'd violently accosted less than a moon ago, in the hovel she used to call home, no less. She'd given him the very scar that was still etched on his face, and then she'd openly mocked him for it just now. In front of Regent Kenobi and the queen and a bunch of courtiers. And then, apparently, she had fainted stone cold. 

_What was_ wrong _with her?_

  
  


She was just about to take the plunge and apologise when she was distracted by the feeling of a slight draft at her back. Frowning, she reached round to touch the back of her dress – and her mouth fell open when her fingers met with the gaping fabric there. 

"Did you rip apart my dress?" she whispered, staring at the prince in disbelief. 

The prince cleared his throat, obvious discomfort crossing his features. "I loosened your bodice. You were out of breath."

Rey tried to crane her neck round to look at her back and failed, but there was no mistaking what her hands were telling her. "You didn't _loosen_ anything. This has been torn apart!"

Prince Ben's eyes flashed to hers, just once. "It was a ridiculous garment and you clearly shouldn't have been wearing it."

Rey gaped at him again. "As if I had any _choice_ in the matter!"

The word hung in the air between them, reminding them both of one other decision they both had very little choice in making. Rey shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn't want to start shouting at him again. Surely, surely, she was capable of having an interaction with this man without getting angry and then falling unconscious. "This wasn't how it was supposed to go."

She opened her eyes and saw that he was staring determinedly at the floor, fixing it with that intense gaze of his. If Rey was being honest, all of him was intense – and dramatic. The way he held his big, hulking frame. The way the moles on his face stood out in stark contrast to his skin. The sweeping way his hair fell in controlled waves, the powerful arch of his mouth, and his deep yet lilting voice.

The prince cleared his throat, still not looking at her. "How was it supposed to go?" 

"Well, you weren't supposed to know me," said Rey, with a humourless laugh. "We weren't supposed to have met before, in a scrapyard, and actually physically fought each other."

She spoke carelessly, wrapped up in the absurdity of the whole situation, and didn't notice the crease between the prince's brows deepening. "You were planning on lying to me about your past?" he asked – suddenly, it seemed to her.

Rey frowned in turn. "And when exactly did I say that?" she demanded.

"You implied it when you said I wasn't supposed to know who you were," he said, speaking slowly like he thought she needed him to. "As if I wouldn't have found out anyway, from the way you accosted me out there in front of everyone."

She could _feel_ the anger mounting inside of her. "Why don't you just come right out and say that you think I acted a low-born yard rat?"

She'd thought he'd been standing tall before, but she saw him stiffen and straighten slightly. "That is not what I meant."

"You _implied_ it, I believe, Your Highness," Rey bit out, throwing his own words back at him. 

He didn't like that. He began to walk around his side of the room, careful not to come close to her, and in a lesser man it could have been said that he was pacing. "This is impossible," he murmured. He shot her a pointed, angry look before looking quickly away again. "You do realise that this is impossible, right?"

"I'm beginning to get that idea, yes!" cried Rey. His outright refusal to look her in the eye and hold their conversation was beginning to infuriate her. She crossed the room and planted herself firmly in his path, forcing him to stop in his tracks. " _Stop_ pacing! You're supposed to be the crown prince of Alderaan, not a caged animal!"

That had been the absolute wrong thing to say, and she only realised it when the prince stepped up to her and finally looked her full in the face. 

"What do you think being royalty _is_?" he demanded, his coal-dark eyes flashing with anger. "Did you think it was parties and jewels and crowns and power? Well, you'll have all those, but let me tell you that you are not going to be able to accept the price you'll have to pay for it. Not you. I can guarantee it."

She almost cricked her neck trying to glare up at him, equal parts bewildered and furious. "What are you _talking_ about?"

"Look at you," he said fiercely, and she thought that he would have gestured with his hands had there been any space between their bodies to do so. "Do you think you're going to be able to survive this? People telling you what to do, what to think, what to wear? Every single interaction I've had with you, quickly devolves into you rising up and shouting in my face – you really think you're going to be able to sit still and take what the rest of this royal life has to throw at you without fighting back and getting broken?"

Rey couldn't put her finger on which exact part of his speech it was that made her vision completely white out in fury – all she knew was that she was angrier than she had ever been in her entire life. 

"First off, you don't know _anything_ about me," she breathed. "Not one single thing. So for you to accuse me of being a gold-digging fool who doesn't even have what it takes to dig for said gold, based on the fact that I can't stop _shrieking_ at you, I'd say that's a bit of a stretch."

She jabbed a finger into his chest as her voice rose. "Has it ever occurred to you that I do, in fact, have my own reasons for being here, or could me being in possession of a working mind completely surpass the realm of possibilities for you? And has it also occurred to you that maybe I can deal perfectly fine with any other thing that's been thrown at me so far, and it's just _your insufferable face t_ hat I keep finding myself screaming at?"

"Contrary to your belief, I am not out to belittle or degrade you, _princess_ ," the prince hissed through gritted teeth. "Whatever your reasons are for doing this, I am trying to _warn_ you that they're not good enough. I have been born _and_ bred to walk this path and I am _telling_ you, Rey, that this is not a burden one can take unless you have been bridled with it your entire life."

The sound of her name on his lips jolted her for a second, and the cocoon of fury she was shrouded in slipped slightly. For just one instant she thought she saw something other than scorn and anger on his face; for just that fleeting moment, she felt a barrage of mixed emotions barrel into her – conflict, regret, and something like a fierce desire to protect. And then they were all gone, replaced once more with her now-ebbing anger.

Rey frowned, disconcerted. Where had _that_ come from? 

"And besides," he added, and she almost shivered from how cold his tone had grown, "if I truly am so intolerable as to be the only one you rail at on sight – I would never dream of making you do anything as unimaginable as suffer my hand in marriage." 

They stood there, chest to heaving chest, for what seemed like an eternity. Rey didn't even know what she was feeling anymore. She wrenched her eyes away from Prince Ben's face and looked out of the window instead, just in time to catch the last few rays of the evening sun as it sank away from view. It seemed fitting, she mused. That the sun was literally setting on this thing before it even had the chance to begin. 

When the prince stepped away from her, she sensed rather than saw it; it was her turn now to keep her gaze firmly away from him. "Well then, my lady," he said, and while his voice was no longer cold, it sounded distant. Detached. Rey realised that it matched the emotion that was sitting tight in her chest.

"I will take my leave, princess," he continued. "I will send a lady to see you back to your rooms."

Rey was about to ask him why she needed to be seen back anywhere, when she remembered that the back of her dress was still hanging open. She was finding it hard to believe that it had been just awhile ago that he'd ripped it up. It felt like hours since that one second when they were both standing opposite each other, thinking they were strangers instead of two people who had already met and clashed by chance. 

By the time she turned around to look at him, he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! Chapter count officially went up, finally (I'm sorry). Also updated the tags because I finally realised this was a slow burn (lol) and because of this slightly angst chapter (is it slight? is it angst? idk). This chapter is one day late in my weekly-update schedule because I had to take some time out to do some re-plotting - and I also got distracted and posted [an insanely fluffy wedding meetcute one-shot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24608146) some days ago as well.
> 
> Thank you to all of you following along and thank you so much for those who are dropping comments, they really warm this bumbling writer's heart.


	9. sunken rock

Ben spent the following days doing everything in his power to avoid Rey. 

This encompassed speaking about her, being anywhere near her, and above all else, thinking of her. 

Two of these pledges were not particularly hard to do. He did have to talk about Rey to tell the queen that he had made up his mind on the engagement – namely that there was not to  _ be  _ an engagement – but he kept that conversation short and to the point. 

"I'm not marrying her," he told Leia in her study, the day after he had walked out on the princess standing with the light of the setting sun on one side of her face. He offered his mother no explanation. "Let me know if you need my assistance with… Exegol," he said, and then he'd left that room too. 

Avoiding Rey in person was easy, too. As always when he was back in Coruscant, he spent most of his hours locked up with counselors and advisors, poring over this ruling or that, revising one income stream or another.  _ This  _ he knew he was good at, better even than his mother – although being skilled at bookwork was one of the less popularised traits of a competent leader. By the time he emerged out from under his stacks of papers in various meeting rooms, it was more often than not an ungodly hour.

In the end, it was the task of not  _ thinking _ about Rey that was proving to be the hardest undertaking of them all. Because it was like her name was  _ everywhere. _

He heard snatches of talk about her in the corridors, nobles bragging about any interactions they'd managed to snag with the latest shiny new object in court. This was normal enough – to be expected, even. But he also heard the hostlers chatting when he went to visit Arte, something about "kind lass of a princess" – and one of the oldest advisors on the trade board had jerked out of a snooze mid-discussion about Exegol turnip exports to say "yes, the princess seems a very good sort of girl."

It was infuriating. 

But if Ben was being honest with himself, he was facing difficulty not thinking about Rey even when he was alone, with no-one around to remind him of her. Because the wild scavenger-turned-princess had managed to completely embed herself in every recess of his mind. 

He hadn't been prepared for her to happen to him. Her freckles, her long-lashed eyes, the way her nose scrunched up when she was shouting herself hoarse at him. He wondered what she looked like when she laughed. He realised that he'd never really seen her give him a proper smile. 

He began spending most of his nights sparring at the empty training yard just to get away from those thoughts. 

On one such night, he'd let his practice sword drop to the floor with a clatter as he rested his forehead against one of the cool stone pillars in the training yard. Sweat dripped from his face, his hair, and his breath came in hard pants. He'd been going at it  _ hard.  _ He closed his eyes briefly. Maybe now he had wrung his body out enough for his mind to give him the blessed respite of sleep. 

"Hey, kid."

Ben looked up to see Han Solo standing a few feet away from him, a bemused expression on his face. Ben shut his eyes again. He must be really tired if he'd let the old man creep up on him unawares. 

"Hey, Da."

His father kept silent, and Ben knew that he was studying him with that sideways look of his. He sighed and went to go pick up his sword. He really shouldn't have dropped it so carelessly; one of the earliest lessons he had been taught was that a knight should never, ever be parted from his blade. Even if it was a wooden one he'd been furiously swinging at a dummy filled with sawdust for the better part of the night. 

"Take a ride with me.”

He stared at his father, uncomprehending. "Da, it's the middle of the night."

Han raised his brows. "It's an hour to daybreak, son." 

Right. Well, this wouldn't be the first time that had happened in the past week – him training the night away and getting no sleep at all. It kind of explained why exactly he was in his current state of mind.

"Sure, Da," he said. "I need to get cleaned up, and then I have some councils to sit in on, so maybe later in the – "

"I think a morning ride would be nice," Han interrupted him. "Catch those early rays, you know?"

Ben looked at his father. Han Solo  _ would  _ be the type of man to ask the crown prince of Alderaan to just skip out of all his meets just to go for a ride. If Ben were his usual, level-headed self, he'd have turned him down and carried on with his obligations. But he was starting to think that he'd been making a lot of questionable decisions, lately. 

"I'll meet you at the stables."

***

Ben and Han rode their horses in silence, Ben more than willing to let his father lead the way on their route. Just like always, the further they galloped away from the palace, the better he felt – like he could breathe again, like a weight had dropped from his shoulders. 

They rode until the landscape around them changed into green expanse, with fields and farms replacing the clustered buildings of the city. By then, the sun had risen high in the sky, and Han stopped them under a little copse of trees on a rise of land that offered only a glimpse of the glittering capital in the distance.

Ben dismounted and unpacked the food and drink he'd brought along for them. They sat on some flat rocks among the grass and ate in silent companionship, the leaves of the trees overhead allowing them shelter from the midday sun. 

Han cleared his throat and spoke first. "Nice spot, this," he began. "Nice ride here, too."

Ben grunted noncommittally.

"I think Rey would like it," Han continued. "It's a bit far, for her level of horsemanship, but we've been building that up each day."

Ben had never chewed a hunk of bread with such single-minded studiousness before. "You've been teaching Rey how to ride?"

Han laughed. "For a girl who's never owned a horse in her life, she doesn't need much teaching. Fearless, she is. I got her on Poe's spare mare, Bee – the horse really took to her."

_ The horse isn't the only one _ , thought Ben, but he said nothing out loud. Han lasted another round of silent chewing before he finally sighed. 

"Kid," he said, his gruff voice low and serious. "What exactly is your deal?"

Ben took a swig from his flask. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. Level with me, Ben. Why won't you marry her?"

Ben stared straight ahead of him, but he wasn’t actually seeing the grassy plains stretched out in front of them. He continued his silence for so long his father probably thought he just wasn't going to answer. But then Ben spoke. He said the only thing that had been on his mind since he'd found out who Princess Eraina really was. 

"She doesn't deserve it."

To Han's credit, he didn't show any reaction to Ben's abrupt statement. Ben knew he was waiting, willing to listen to the rest of what he had to say. It meant a lot, knowing that his old man was giving him that courtesy.

"She doesn't deserve to live a life that's not hers," he said. "Tethered to the crown, tethered to me – she's not made for that. You can see it. She's different. She's… the kind of person who could do anything she wanted. Be anything she wanted. You didn't see her in Jakku. In that wasteland she grew up in,  _ completely _ alone. She  _ just  _ got out of there. What kind of monster would I be to subject her to a lifetime with me the moment she got a taste of liberation?"

Han gave him one of his sidelong looks. "She's Exegol royalty, Ben," he said. "Whether she marries you or not, she's tied to a royal line anyway. That's not on you."

"But she has the Force," argued Ben. It was clear to him now why his attempt at using mind persuasion on her during their first encounter had failed. He wondered how that had been found out at the palace – had Rey known and told them, or was it a known fact that the lost princess was Force-sensitive? "She can't inherit the throne."

His father cocked a brow at him. "So you think they're just gonna let her skip off into the sunset wherever she wants?" Han let out a small chuckle as he finished off his jerky. "Ben, I've been to Exegol court, once. If you think it's suffocating here, it's ten times worse over there. Don't ship Rey off to that, not if you care anything about her."

Ben swallowed. 

"Besides," continued Han, "Rey ain't you, kid. I think she actually likes it here, in Coruscant, and in the palace. It's only been a few weeks, but people are taking to her. Really, really taking to her."

A growl escaped from Ben. "I didn't say she couldn't stay here, if that is what she wishes. The point is that she should be free to go wherever she wants to go."

"Ben." His father gave him an exasperated look. "You know she can't stay here."

Very slowly, Ben turned to look at his father. "Says who?"

Han exhaled loudly. "Exegol. Kenobi. Stars, I don't know, Ben. You know I'm not good with all this stuff. But one thing's for sure, once Kenobi leaves Alderaan, Rey's going with him – unless someone has a bigger claim on her than Exegol does."

"Like her husband," said Ben through gritted teeth.

"Yes, like her husband," Han repeated impatiently. "Rocks, Ben, what was Leia teaching you all those years in those princely lessons of yours? How are you only getting all this  _ now? _ "

Ben stood up abruptly. "Let's go," he said, striding over to where Arte was and wasting no time in kicking his leg over the saddle. 

Han straightened with a groan. "Where are we running off to now?"

***

Ben burst into his mother’s office with his father trailing a long way behind him, ignoring the footman’s protests that the queen was occupied. 

“Benjamin,” Leia said calmly as he stormed into the room. “Nice of you to join us."

As luck would have it, Leia's guest was none other than the Regent Kenobi himself. Ben remembered enough etiquette to bow to his mother and incline his head at Kenobi, before looming over where the queen and the regent were seated on opposite sides of Leia's desk. 

His mother lifted her brows. "Is there something we can help you with, my son?"

"Don't make Rey go back to Exegol." He said the words without no preamble, and they came out harsh and ringing in the quiet air of Leia's study. 

The queen sighed, a hand going up to rub at her temple. Despite all her political prowess, she never shied from expressing her feelings to those around her – or perhaps it was because of her political prowess that she had that luxury. Kenobi leaned forward. 

"Does this mean you have decided to take Eraina's hand in marriage?" he enquired. 

Regent Obi Wan Kenobi was an elderly man with a mild, agreeable air and very little else to be assumed about him. Kenobi had shared history with Ben’s grandfather Anakin and even his uncle Luke, but Ben himself had very little to do with him. Ben looked him full in the face and was met with a tranquil, almost friendly gaze in return.

"No," said Ben, shortly. "It means no such thing."

Kenobi sat back in his seat, his passive face betraying no emotion. "Then I'm afraid our hands are tied, Your Highness. Princess Eraina may not be able to ascend our throne, but to allow a years-long lost princess – the only one left of the Palpatine line – to remain abroad at loose for any longer – I do not think that will be possible."

"Does Rey wish to go to Exegol?” demanded Ben.

"Have you asked her?" Kenobi questioned in that infuriatingly neutral tone of his. 

"I'm not the one forcing her back with me," Ben shot back. "Have you?"

"Prince Benjamin," Leia cut in sharply, and Ben heard the clear reprimand in her tone. "We all know that Rey has settled in nicely here at court for the past weeks. She has admitted to me her reluctance in leaving the kingdom where she has spent the last fifteen years, but given the way expectations and  _ the law  _ stands, we  _ cannot _ keep her here simply because she wishes it."

Ben stood stock still, both his mind and jaw working furiously. He hated that Rey was subject to these laws and shackles, hated that she was going to be hauled across the ocean to be locked into a cage or whatever Exegol did with its rejected royals – 

"Your Highness," said Kenobi, and there was kindness in the old man's voice. "Without a claim of a husband on her, I cannot prevent her necessary return to Exegol. But she will not be alone there, Your Highness. Eraina is the daughter of the late crown prince and princess of Exegol, whom I would have given my life to had they asked for it. For that alone, I would see no harm come to her, but we all know she is a delight in her own right."

Ben was frankly uninterested in hearing one more person sing Rey's praises. With difficulty, he forced himself to remain rooted to the spot instead of pacing like – well, as Rey had put it that day, a caged animal. Kenobi's assurances did nothing to temper down on his rising panic over what was going to happen to Rey. As a Palpatine, Rey belonged to the state of Exegol – and as regent councilor, Kenobi served that draconian state. The regent would probably keep Rey alive, yes, but that didn't mean that she was going to be alright. Or happy. Or free. 

He snapped out of his reverie when he realised that too long had passed without him saying anything in return. Leia, Kenobi, and Han – who must have finally slunk into the room at some point – were all looking at him, waiting for some sort of response. 

But Ben didn't have one.

So he simply gave a bow, thanked the queen and the regent for their time, turned on his heel, and left the room.

His father followed him out and waited until they were some distance away before pulling him aside into a nook in the corridor. "So, kid?" he said. "What are you going to do?"

Ben ran a hand violently through his hair. "I don't know," he said. He wanted to shout. He wanted to break something. He wanted to know the answer to that question. 

"Ben," Han said. "If you ask me… I don't think Rey's going to go. With Kenobi. To Exegol."

Ben looked at his father, feeling suddenly both young and infinitely tired all at the same time. "Da, what do you mean?"

"Just – we go riding every day, like I said. And she let slip some things. The girl's sweet, but not subtle. If you ask me – I think she'll make a run for it. Give 'em the slip."

Something tugged at Ben, deep inside him. He would have thought about it, and how that visceral feeling hit him just a bit too forcefully, but right now he focused solely on processing Han's words. Of course.  _ Of course  _ the wildfire he'd met in Jakku wouldn't just go where she was told with her tail between her legs. Of course Rey could chart her own path and leave – on her own terms, on her own schedule.

“That’s great,” said Ben, slowly. “Well, not great that she has to run away. But – great that she – can.”

“And you’re alright with that.”

“I don’t see how it has anything to do with me,” said Ben, roughly. “I would be worried about her safety, but the girl has fended for herself perfectly well for the past decade and a half.”

“She hadn’t done anything that would basically make her an outlaw then,” Han pointed out.

Unable to stand still any longer, Ben launched into a stride, even though he didn’t know where he was heading. “She should be able to go wherever she wants to.”

As usual, Han was more than a few steps behind him, but Ben heard his soft rejoiner clearly all the same. “But like I said, kid, Rey’s not you. What if where she wants to be is right here?”

Ben quickened his pace. The more his father probed, the more obvious it became that Ben had no idea what he was going to do about all this. And the longer he dwelt on this topic, the harder it became to fight down the feeling in his chest that was rearing violently at the thought of Rey leaving, either with Kenobi or to make her escape.

Because either option would mean that Ben would never see her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading :) you can always come say hi to me on twitter @reylo_mo


	10. escape route

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone I've missed you all and this story terribly T_T I'm so sorry for the gap in updates, I've had some stressful weeks irl and just couldn't find the time to write even though I wanted to so badly. anyway, just thought I'd drop a note (since it's been awhile) reminding you in the previous chapter that our Ben finally realised that Rey isn't going to just wait around forever and that he doesn't want her to leave. Thank you so much for your patience, and while I found this chapter quite tough to write possibly bc of my headspace or maybe it just was tough, idk, I hope you enjoy it.

To be quite frank, Rey had really been having a rough few weeks.

Lying in her bed the night of her planned escape from the palace, she tried to put her finger on when it all really began. 

Perhaps it was when she had arrived in the palace to meet none less than the ruler of the entire kingdom, who had tugged her into an iron hug and whispered into her hair that she looked  _ exactly _ like her mother – the mother she had never known, whom she now discovered was  _ dead _ alongside her  _ dead  _ father. 

Finding out that both her parents had been royalty in a foreign land, making her the royal princess of some kingdom called Exegol, had also been a lot to take in. And when Regent Obi Wan Kenobi had arrived from the said kingdom, and took one look at her and said she had something called the Force, things had gotten even odder. Rey had never heard of it her entire life, and no-one seemed interested in filling her in on it, but it seemed to move the conversation from Rey's possible future in Exegol to her continued permanence in Alderaan.

Just not, apparently, as the free woman she had been before. 

They told her she was going to have to marry Prince Benjamin Solo. That it was in her best interest if she wanted to stay in Alderaan. That it was an arrangement that had been made beforehand by her family, for her protection, for this very circumstance – that it was to keep her safe. 

No, thank you, Rey had wanted to say. She didn't need to stay here and be  _ married  _ off to a stranger, for whatever reason. She'd never set foot in Coruscant all her life until this point, and she could very well leave it and all of this behind with them none the wiser. 

But soon Rey began to realise that she liked the city that she found herself in, and that leaving it for the foreign land of Exegol seemed less than appealing. She liked her (albeit supervised) visits to the morning market, her daily horseback rides out to some greenery, exploring the different nooks of the city to find which had the best view of the sea.

It wasn't just Coruscant, either; the palace itself fascinated her. While at first it was overwhelming having so many people running around with their different roles to play, she found herself slowly wondering what part  _ she  _ might hold in its ever-changing puzzle. She had made friends at court; in the spirited Lord Poe and the flirtatious Lady Kaydel, and of course the open-hearted Finn and his beautiful wife Lady Rose.

And – perhaps most significantly – she was also finding herself drawn to Han and Leia. Each day she spent with the no-nonsense queen with the motherly voice and her scrappy rascal of a husband consort, she found herself wondering more and more about what their son would be like. If it would really be so horrible to be paired with this mysterious royal stranger – even if it  _ was  _ just so she could stay in Alderaan – if he had Han's gruff wit and Leia's warm heart. 

She punched her pillow violently. And look how that had turned out. 

As her thoughts turned to the crown prince, she realised that the whole upending of her life had begun when  _ he'd _ unknowingly offered to go and meet his own future bride in Jakku. 

Another thump on the pillow. Not that she was his future bride  _ anymore. _ Ben didn't want to marry her, and she wasn't going to let herself get shipped off to Exegol, so escape she must. 

Which was what she should be doing, right about now.

Rey got up and lifted her soft silk nightgown over her head, swapping it for the same set of clothes she had worn from Jakku. It was more for practical purposes than any real reluctance to make off with anything provided by the palace; she’d had no qualms dropping by the training yard a couple of days ago to sneak off with a wooden staff. She’d also managed to get her hands on a sturdy coil of rope from the groundskeeper’s shed, her means of escape from her low-hanging balcony tonight. 

She paused as she walked past the gilded full-length mirror in the corner of her room, looking over her reflection illuminated only by the moonlight shining in from the outside. Signature three buns, intact. The too-large travelling cloak she’d arrived at the palace in, around her shoulders. Wooden staff, slung over her back. 

She nodded. Time to go. 

Dragging her coil of rope out from under her bed over to the balcony, she deftly tied one end firmly in place and threw the rest of the rope down. Her room was only on the first floor off the ground, so she climbed down the rope without difficulty; her feet soon thudded onto the grass-wet ground and she was cutting her way through the garden quickly and quietly. 

Rey's plan was simple and foolproof. Finn had helped her source for a boat that was leaving the docks in the city that night, and Rey was to get on it. It was a cargo boat leaving Coruscant to make its rounds to several other ports in Alderaan, and Rey could choose whichever one she wanted to get off at; it didn't matter. The end destination wasn't the priority – she just needed a quick and discreet way to get out of Coruscant. 

And her plan worked well indeed. She slipped through the palace gates unnoticed, it being still a reasonable hour so as to avoid suspicion, and made her way down the winding streets from the palace down to the docks without so much as a hitch. 

So here she was, the wooden planks of the pier beneath her feet, moonlight glistening on the lapping water, staring at the waiting boat that was to be her ticket away from her forced passage to Exegol.

Completely unable to bring herself to take another step towards it.

***

Rey sat at the edge of the dock, her legs hanging in the air above the water, and watched until the boat she was meant to be on was just a shadow blurring into the night horizon. 

It was also then that she heard a deep, almost-familiar voice behind her. 

"Rey."

She didn't even need to turn and see the lone, hulking figure behind her to know who it was. And if she'd been in a more curious state of mind, she'd wonder why she didn't even feel surprised that he was there with her. Instead, she kept her eyes on the dark sea waters. "Your Highness," she murmured, by way of barest acknowledgement. 

"Rey – please call me Ben."

She brushed that aside. "How did you know I was here?" she asked dully.

The hesitation was evident in his voice. "I followed you from the palace."

Rey turned to look back at him. He was just standing there, clothed head to toe in black, leather gloves and all, dark cloak rippling slightly in the light sea breeze. "Why? Are you going to turn me in?"

"Rey, you're not a criminal," said the prince. He sounded gentler than she'd ever heard him before. He moved forward, his footsteps silent but solid on the sturdy planks of the dock. "May I?"

She gave the slightest nod to indicate that she had no objection, but didn't bother moving over to make more room for him. So when Ben came to sit next to her, he was a lot closer than she'd expected; even with the tang of sea salt in the air she caught a whiff of his scent, faint and earthy and reminding her of cinnamon. She suppressed the sudden need to shudder, despite her cloak keeping off most of the chill night air. 

They sat like that in silence, so close that their lengths of their arms were pressed together, until Rey finally spoke. "I didn't get on the boat."

Ben's response was measured and quiet. "Where was it headed?"

"Away," she said simply. "Not to Exegol. I don't want to go there." She bit her lip, wondering how much to share with this reserved prince whom she'd only ever shouted at before. "I may have been born there, but – that's not where I want to be. I don't think I would be very… free there."

Ben inclined his head in agreement. They listened to the gentle lap of the waves for a while, until he spoke. "Princess," he said, and she didn't know why it raised a shiver when he called her that, a title that shouldn't mean anything to her at all. "In our last… conversation, you told me you had your own reasons for agreeing to the arrangement." She could feel him looking sideways at her, but she kept her own gaze firmly ahead. "Why did you want to marry me, Rey?"

"First of all, I didn't  _ want  _ to marry you," snapped Rey. "It was... " She pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, willing them not to betray her by doing anything like crying. "My parents are dead."

The words rang out loud and hollow, and Rey imagined them falling out of her to drop into the water beneath and sink to the sandy bottom below. "Perhaps this shouldn't matter to me right now, but it does. I don't even remember them. I suppose I should be happy to learn that they supposedly loved me – that they didn't just  _ leave  _ me – " 

Her vision was blurring now, her throat tight and painful. "And that should be enough. I don't need a crown, I don't even have a throne, because apparently I've got some hidden powers that aren't meant for it – that  _ no-one  _ is telling me about, by the way. I know who I am now. I should just take that knowledge, and – go.”

And try as she might, she couldn't keep the bitterness – or the truth – out of her words as she got to the crux of the matter. "But I'm the girl who stayed in Jakku for fifteen years just in case that was where whomever I belonged to needed me to be. And now, even knowing that my family is  _ dead  _ and this  _ arrangement  _ is the only legacy left for me, I can't bring myself to leave it."

The tears finally spilled over, leaving hot tracks where they raced down her face, and Rey gave way to her grief at last – all gasps and shudders and a feeling in her chest like her heart might burst. She let the sobs break out of her and escape into the dark of the night, the lapping of the sea swallowing them up whole. 

She cried until she couldn’t cry anymore. 

When her sobs slowly turned into a calmer, more exhausted sort of quiet, she looked at Ben and found him watching her, his face inscrutable, dark eyes glinting with the reflected moonlight off the water. The tiniest bit of self-consciousness crept back into her.

“Ben –” she began. 

But the words died on her lips when he raised a gloved hand to her face. 

It was only when she felt the soft caress of the leather against her skin that she realised that he was gently brushing her tears away. He started with a careful rub of his thumb under one eye, brought another hand up to catch the end of a track at the corner of her mouth – and then he just stayed like that, cradling her face in his large gloved hands, with Rey hardly daring to breathe, and hardly knowing where to look. 

They sat like that for what felt like forever, until Ben finally let go of her face – only to grip one of her small hands in both of his instead. “Rey,” he said, his deep voice hitching a little on her name. "I am sorry for your past. I truly am."

Rey thought about pulling her hand away, or even looking somewhere other than deep into his capturing gaze. But she didn't. She found that she couldn't move – and that she wanted to hear what he had to say. 

"I was wrong in my assumptions about you," he said. "About your motivations, about everything. Rey, if you agreed to wear our crown Alderaan would be blessed to have you."

Whatever Rey had been expecting Ben to say, it definitely wasn't that. Her mouth parted in surprise. "Your Highness, what are you – "

"I'm saying that I was so caught up in what I thought you wanted that I didn't think about what it is you really – do want," said Ben, his voice rough. "And it's been eating at me ever since we last spoke. If entering into our families' arrangement is something you want to do, Rey, then we'll do it. You have my word that I will do everything in my power to offer you a life that  _ you  _ want – not just a royal's life, but a life for you. You deserve that."

Rey felt his grip on her hand tighten a little. "I'm not saying that it would be a position without authority. The future queen of Alderaan would have power, that goes without saying. It's just that..." he trailed off then, and when he spoke again his eyes were so distant Rey would have thought he wasn't speaking to her anymore if he hadn't mentioned her name. "Rey, as long as it is within my power, I would give you my hand with all of its advantages and none of the constraints."

The words coming out of his mouth were so out of the realm of what she was expecting that Rey's head spun. "What made you change your mind?" she blurted out. 

"I didn't know they would send you away to Exegol if we didn't marry," admitted Ben. "I changed my mind when I found out."

Rey snorted. "You thought they'd let the princess of Exegol just loiter around the Alderaan court forever? You  _ are  _ as smart as you look, after all." 

She winced then, chiding herself for throwing in a barb despite Ben's wildly changed demeanour, but relaxed when he cocked his head to one side and looked at her sidelong. "You know," he said, "I'm beginning to see why you get along with my parents." 

The lighthearted moment passed quickly, however, and his expression turned serious once more. "I can't secure you a place at court without marrying you, Rey," he said. "But if that's not what you want at all – if what you want is to leave the palace entirely and lay low anywhere else in Alderaan – I'll make sure you're settled too. You don't have to – "

She saw him bite back what he wanted to say next, as if he realised at the last minute that allusions to her past living conditions might be insensitive. "You don't have to worry about it, Rey," he supplied instead. "You shouldn't have to. That was why I followed you tonight. I thought I could ask you if you needed anything – " He stopped. "But then it looked like you changed your mind." 

And when Ben finally stopped talking and looked at her expectantly, Rey was fairly certain that it was her turn to speak now. But for the first time in a long while, she found herself at an uncharacteristic utter loss for words. The crown prince of Alderaan was sitting right next to her on the edge of a pier, offering her his hand and his protection and basically  _ anything _ she wanted, and she had no idea what to say to him in response. 

She opened her mouth, but whatever it was she was going to say – what  _ was  _ she going to say? – never came out, because someone else cut in first. 

"Oi, look what we have here, lads!"

Rey felt Ben stiffen immediately as she turned and spotted the group of five or six men who were sauntering up towards them. They had clearly been drinking; one of them was clutching a bottle in his hands and two or three of them seemed to have trouble standing upright. The one who was closest to them, however, and presumably the one who had called out, looked just sober enough to feel like stirring up some mischief.

Rey sighed, at the very same time Ben did, but it was he who spoke first. "We're just minding our business here," the prince said in his deep voice, and his change of tone from low and earnest from moments ago to something so cold and controlled now almost made her start. "We're not looking for any trouble."

The presumed leader of the pack ambled over until he was very close to Ben. "But what if trouble's looking for you, eh? Shouldn't be taking your lady out to loiter in such unsavoury parts, eh?"

Rey rolled her eyes. She wasn't afraid of a little scuffle, especially not with Ben by her side, but she would much rather be concentrating on whether or not she should become Ben's wife and one day the queen of Alderaan. "Do you even know who he is?" she demanded crossly. 

"Rey," said Ben warningly, under his breath.    
  


She frowned at him. "What's wrong with enlightening them?"

"Pray tell!" cried one of the other drunkards, tripping a little over his own feet and sloshing some liquor out of his bottle. "Who's your man, girlie?"

"They won't believe you," muttered Ben. "Forget it." He raised his voice and spoke once more in that cool, crushing tone. "I'll say this once, gentlemen," he said slowly. "Leave us alone."

The drunkest one stumbled forward and slapped a hand on Ben's shoulder. "What if – "

He never got to finish his sentence. In one fluid motion, Ben had clamped a hand around the man's forearm and yanked him clean over his shoulder, tossing the rogue into the water as if he weighed nothing more than a rag doll. Before Rey could even react, he'd wrapped an arm around her middle and yanked  _ her  _ up just as effortlessly as well, guiding her to her feet and away from the edge of the dock.

Ben smirked at her bemused expression. "Don't want you getting wet by accident," he explained. He reached around her back and took hold of her staff. "Let me borrow this, sweetheart."

_ Sweetheart?  _ Rey was about to protest, but her indignance was drowned out by the thought that consumed her next – that Prince Solo fighting was something to pay attention to.

She watched as the prince darted to his first target and used her staff to deliver a neat, controlled tap to the side of the head that sunk his victim down like a rock, easily dodging a glass bottle thrown at his head by someone else. Two more of the group then charged at Ben with a yell, both throwing themselves on him at the same time, but all it took was a couple of well-placed punches to the gut to get them off him and lying on the ground instead. 

True, Ben's current opponents weren't a huge threat, and his attacks were clearly aimed at disengaging rather than seriously hurting. But the sudden, unbridled energy rolling off him, the ease and confidence with which he was moving from one man to another – all made it very clear that the only other time she'd seen the prince fighting, when  _ she'd  _ been his opponent – he'd been holding back even more than he was now. 

She wondered what he'd be like in actual combat, and what a thrill it would be to see it.

Rey snapped out of her reverie only when Ben returned to her side, having rendered all six men unconscious in a matter of minutes. He ran a hand through his hair while he offered her staff back to her with another. She took it back from him and noticed that he'd even had time to clean it off too – just as she realised that he'd had his own sword hanging at his waist the entire time.

"We should probably go," said Ben, casually. "Don't want to be here when they wake up."

She nodded, and they began walking away together side by side, Ben shortening his strides to match hers. "Why did you say they wouldn't believe you were the prince?" she asked after a while. "Don't people know what you look like?" 

Ben snorted. "You didn't know what I looked like."

Rey glared at him. "I've never been anywhere near Coruscant in my entire life. This is different."

The prince sighed. "People here don't… know me. Not even in court; I'm not often in Coruscant. The Sir Kylo Ren you met in one of the far corners of Alderaan is a much more accurate picture of how I spend most of my time."

Rey kept quiet as she took in this information. It seemed to her that this shouldn't be the way things were for the crown prince of a kingdom, but she didn't think it was her place to say anything about it.

Not yet, anyway. 

That added afterthought made her stop short, just as she and Ben reached the bottom of the winding slope that led up to the palace. The prince was looking at her, a question in his eyes – waiting for her answer from before. 

Rey took a deep breath. "I want to stay," she said, her voice coming out stronger than she felt. "In the palace."

Ben nodded, and because he happened to be standing in the shadows she couldn't get a read on the expression on his face. "You know the condition that comes with that, though."

Rey shrugged, keeping her tone light. "How bad could it be, right?"

For the first time since she'd met him, Rey saw the tiniest hint of a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. "How bad could it be, indeed," he echoed, once more extending his gloved hand to reach for hers.

And unlike earlier on the dock, when she simply let him hold her hands in his, this time she reached back out towards him and took it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really hope the slightly longer chapter didn't bore you and sort of made up for the extra wait! I would love to return to my weekly updates from now on, but we'll see because things haven't 100% settled down for me irl, but fingers crossed! While I was missing this fic because I couldn't find the time to write it, it was such a joy for me to go back to the old comments posted and even receive new ones from people who discovered it while I was away. Thank you and much appreciation all round <3 if you're on twitter, come say hi @reylo_mo


	11. new ground

Rey and Ben fell into a routine. 

Every morning, he appeared at her door to escort her down to break fast with the royal family, even though she knew that he'd been up for hours before that already. Over the meal, he'd quietly tell her what obligations he had for the day, politely asking what she would be doing in turn.

Sometimes, she wouldn't see him until he reappeared in the sitting room long after supper – but sometimes he'd come along for her daily ride with Han, her political lesson with Leia, or whatever else she did during the day. And then at night, he'd walk her back to her chambers and say he hoped she would have a good rest. 

It was nice, actually. They were rarely alone, but Rey supposed this was understandable, and that Ben was going along with the motions of a formal courtship, as befitted both their stations. It was to be expected. 

Perhaps what she  _ hadn't  _ anticipated was for Ben to treat her with quite so much – care. 

In Jakku, no-one had handled her gently. And even here in the palace, she'd fallen into an open, direct dynamic with almost everyone around her – in the drawn-out debates and daily banter she had with the queen and prince consort, the way she shut down all of Poe's provocative comments, how she made sure to hold her own so she wouldn’t be intimidated by all these new strangers she was meeting. After all, the beginning of her acquaintance with Ben had been like that as well, the two of them rushing headlong to misunderstand one another.

But things were different now.

It was in the tone of voice he used around her that she never heard him adopt with anyone else – one that was low, soft, infinitely more gentle. It was in the way that he listened to her speak, either to him or other people – with full attention, like even her throwaway comments were the most important considerations to take in.

And whenever she had any request she could bring herself to ask of him, he was always eager to fulfill it – such as her tentative query as to whether she could sit in on one of the meetings he was always at, just to see what they were like. 

Which was why she was here now, at a closed-door discussion with the kingdom's council for land and agriculture, trying to ignore the swooping feeling in her stomach she got every time she felt Ben's eyes rest on her from his seat across the room. 

Because that was another thing that unsettled her, she realised. The way the prince  _ looked  _ at her these days. Ben always spoke to her and treated her with such perfect civility, not a word or mannerism out of place – but the way he looked at her was the complete opposite of polite. It was always intense, heightened, almost hungry – and it never failed to make Rey feel like she'd missed a step going down a flight of stairs.

So, in an act of sudden defiance, the next time she felt Ben's eyes on her amidst the continuous droning of the council, she lifted her chin and stared back at him. She expected him to look away when she did, perhaps slightly abashed to have been caught.

But he didn’t. He held her gaze levelly with his own, and then she and Ben just sat there on opposite sides of the room staring at each other, right in the middle of an ongoing discussion on crop irrigation. 

Just when she was starting to feel light-headed – because for some reason she was holding her breath – she heard someone say “And what do you think, Your Highness?” She blinked; the question had come from the far end of the room, but the prince answered smoothly without so much as turning his head.

“I trust in the council’s consensus that the current irrigation method is the most successful one so far, Lord Veers,” replied Ben steadily. “That is the one we should stick to as the realm’s standard.”

“But by many landowners’ accounts, the crop output of recent years have been less than bountiful – ”

“And the council’s report addresses the other factors that caused this, backed by a case made by the farmers in the region in question,” Ben shot back, finally taking his eyes off Rey. She sucked in a breath of relief. “We’ve already discussed this at length. I suggest we move on.”

Ben didn’t look at Rey anymore after that, seemingly preferring to busy himself with scribbling in the leather-bound journal he held in one hand instead. Although, Rey thought as she saw that it was charcoal he was using and not a quill, was he  _ sketching _ instead of writing? 

Her eyes drifted up towards his face. She couldn’t help it. Because if she was being honest, she had started looking at Ben just as often as she knew he looked at her. 

She had looked at the way his wavy hair curled slightly at the ends. The way he kept his eyes half-lidded when he was deep in thought, and how their seemingly dark colour turned into a more golden amber in the light.

She looked at his strong, aquiline nose, thought about how it brought character to his face and added to his already interesting side profile. She thought about his jaw and the way he worked it like he didn’t realise he was doing it. How the moles that dotted his face stood out like constellations she wanted to map with her fingers. 

Rey didn’t hear a single word of what was said for the rest of the council meeting, and only jerked out of her reverie when she realised everyone had shuffled to their feet. Ben was already by the door, waiting for her with a single eyebrow raised; she flushed and made her way over to him, where he offered her his arm. They made it through the door and a few steps down the corridor when Leia appeared almost right on them, seemingly out of nowhere. 

“Rocks, mother,” Ben said as she slid gracefully between Ben and Rey, linking an arm with each. “It’s not queenly to skulk.”

“Walk with me, children,” said Leia breezily. “How was your meeting?”

“Fine,” Ben supplied shortly, since Rey didn’t know what to say. 

“Good, good,” the queen said. “And may I ask  _ why _ was Rey present at a meeting of the council of agricultural affairs?”

Rey shifted uncomfortably, and Ben answered for them once again. “Rey was curious and wanted to sit in.”

"And of course, you readily agreed," Leia commented to her son, her voice amused. "Well, I have no objection, but others might – so may I request that we wait until the princess of Exegol officially becomes the crown princess of Alderaan before we actively bore her to death on kingdom matters?"

Rey and Ben made some general noises of assent, and Leia laughed at them. "Are you two ready for tomorrow's betrothal ceremony?"

“I think so,” said Rey. 

"I don't see why the ceremony is necessary," grumbled Ben. 

Leia shot her son a look. "It's an Alderaanian custom as old as time, my boy," she began, a touch of asperity in her voice. 

"I  _ know  _ that. And we have fulfilled it. I offered Rey my hand when we agreed to marry each other, and she took it."

The queen lifted a brow. "You physically joined hands?"

"Yes," growled Ben, looking like he was fit to murder someone. 

Leia recovered quickly. "Then it shouldn't be an issue for you kids to repeat it tomorrow in front of a few people."

At this point, Rey’s face was burning a fiery red. She had been briefed about what the betrothal ceremony would entail – a simple observance where Ben would verbally and physically offer her his hand in marriage, and all she had to do was say yes and take it. But she hadn’t made the link between the actions of the ceremony and what she and Ben had done that night out in the city. 

“Anyway,” said Ben, clearing his throat loudly and disengaging his arm from the queen’s. “Excuse us, mother, I’ve been scheduled for a discussion with the tower guard, and Rey has a fitting for tomorrow’s dress right now.”

“I do?” asked Rey, trying to remember whether she had forgotten this, or why Ben would have cause to know it instead of her. 

“Yes,” Ben said, still glowering. “I’ll walk you to your quarters, Rey.”

“That’s all right, Ben,” said Rey, touching his arm lightly. “I know the way from here.”

For a moment the prince only stiffened, his mouth straightening into a line, before he nodded. “I will see you at supper, Rey,” he said, inclining his head. He gave Leia a bow as well, and then left, his dark cloak rippling behind him as he strolled across the courtyard in the hot afternoon sun. 

Rey forced herself to tear her eyes off his retreating figure and give Leia a hasty curtsey goodbye. “I’ll be going this way, Your Majesty,” she said. 

“Of course,” said Leia, and she once again looked thoroughly diverted for some reason. “Run along, my dear.”

Rey curtsied once more for good measure and then left the queen to go to her chambers, where she supposed some handmaiden or rather was waiting with tomorrow’s dress. But when she walked through the door, it wasn’t a helpful-looking seamstress who awaited her.

A very pasty-skinned, pinch-faced man with red hair dressed was standing there, surrounded by one looked like an explosion of dozens of different scraps of fabric, glaring at her. 

“Uhm,” said Rey, eloquently. 

“You’re late,” he informed her crisply. 

Rey decided to go for a pacifying approach. The cross-looking man in front of her didn’t look like he needed more stress or antagonism in his life. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to sound sincere. “I… didn’t actually know that this appointment had been made.”

The man sniffed elegantly. “You royals are all the same.”

Rey’s eyes widened. “I’m… sorry – sir?”

“My name is Armitage Hux, the palace’s chief dressmaker," said the redhead testily, as if she should have known this already. "I have been requested to undertake all responsibilities in relation to your wardrobe from hereon out. You may call me Armitage, or Hux, as those are my names."

He circled Rey once, and then glared down into her face. "Now would you please strip down to your underthings as quickly as you can – you may use your screen, but that would be quite redundant as I will be seeing you in them shortly anyway. Your Highness.”

Rey gaped at him, and then proceeded to do what she was told. 

Soon, Armitage had her in what instantly became Rey's absolute favourite piece of clothing ever. It was a dress made entirely of deep blue velvet, with a sharp neckline and slanting straps for sleeves that didn't cover much of her shoulders. The close-fitting bodice was plain, but the long skirt was embroidered with stars in silver thread, so delicately done that the effect was as subtle and distant as the real stars in the night sky. 

She loved it. 

"It's not the horrendous Exegol style the underlings have been putting you in since you first got here, certainly," sniffed Armitage. "I did question whether that would be an issue for the ceremony, but he insisted that tomorrow is a purely Alderaanian affair, although the wedding – "

"Sorry," said Rey, "but – he?"

"The prince, of course," said Armitage, irritably. "This is one of his designs. As I was saying, the wedding will require a bit more – "

"I'm sorry," said Rey again, her voice sounding slightly higher-pitched than before, "did you say the prince  _ designed _ – "

Armitage sighed in annoyance, and Rey had never felt that her presence was more grating to anyone else in her life. "Were you not aware that His Highness designs his own clothes?  _ With  _ my assistance, of course, and I am the one who makes them. He came to me with a score of new designs for your entire wardrobe, which I have already begun work on since. My focus now is of course on tomorrow's dress, and the wedding, but I have completed some of his simpler designs for your everyday trousseau." The redheaded dressmaker walked over to hold up some dresses from the pile around them in evidence. 

"After your marriage the Exegol identity should be less of an issue, but the prince has some ideas for a union of the two styles that I can work with – which is likely what he will be going for your wedding dress as well. His Highness has not provided me with his final design for that yet, which is honestly quite unspeakable of him." Sniffing, Armitage pulled out some sheafs of paper from a black leather-bound holder and frowned at them. "And I haven't had time to work on these yet."

Rey nearly tripped over the little stool she was standing on as she waved a hand violently at the dressmaker. "May I see them?"

Her breath caught the instant she saw what was on the pages Armitage handed over. And not because they were charcoal sketches of a figure that looked a lot like her, complete with a three-bun hairstyle.

The details were in the design of the clothing that the model was wearing: a short-sleeved under-shift in a wrap style with matching arm coverings, paired with a longer outer tunic that had a slit to offer mobility in the front, but covered the back to offer some modesty when worn with breeches. In some sketches, the outer tunic was replaced by a vest, or even a cloak, but the gist of it was clear; the designs were all variations on the way she was dressed when Ben had first found her in Jakku. 

The way she had dressed for most of her life. The outfits that she'd put together for herself with whatever scraps of material she could find, struggling to make them functional and yet not look like a complete disaster, and feeling proud every day she wore them that she had succeeded in that. 

"Are you quite done?" Armitage asked impatiently. 

A few rapid blinks got the tears in her eyes under control, but she had to try several times to get her voice to work around her suddenly-tight throat. "Yes," she said. "Thank you, Armitage. I think these will look beautiful when you are done with them."

He sniffed elegantly. "It's a bit of an unconventional style, even for His Highness, but there is undoubtedly some potential to it." He bent over to tug at Rey's hemline, before straightening to fuss at her sleeves. "Now, princess, please hold still."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some soft Rey thoughts for you - and dare we say it - feelings? I'm overwhelmed by the sweet comments and positive reactions from the last chapter, it's just the most amazing feeling and I'm convinced that this fic has the best readers in the world. Hope you guys are all doing well <3 
> 
> fyi, since I'll probably be delving into longer chapters and also foresee an increased workload for myself in the future I probably won't be able to update every week like I used to, although I love this story too much not to update regularly. just wanted to let y'all know! xxx


	12. touchstone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! Been awhile between updates, so just dropping a note to tell you that this is the betrothal ceremony chapter and buckle up because it's slightly on the longer side :) some big(ish) things are (finally sort of) happening (as far as this fic goes haha), so I hope you enjoy!

Ben didn’t see Rey until the thick of the betrothal ceremony the following evening.

In hindsight, that was his mistake.

He did better the more time he spent around Rey. It let him get used to her – the sound of her laugh after she said something warm and clever, the colour of her eyes caught in sunlight. Sometimes it seemed if he went more than a day or so away from Rey, he forgot how to be around her once more; he’d lose whatever small headway he’d made in his relationship with her, and return to his stilted, bumbling self once more. 

Yes, what Ben should have done was spend every second leading up to the betrothal immersing himself in Rey's presence, so he didn’t need to feel so nervous about it. Also because despite her light quips and increasingly playful jabs at him – verbal, thankfully – he felt calmer when he was around her. More – at peace. 

What Ben definitely  _ shouldn’t _ have done was fail to get a glimpse of Rey in her dress beforehand, because now that she was wearing it walking towards him in front of a gaggle of people, ready to take his hand, he was helpless to fight the ringing in his ears and his lips parting open. 

Rey on an ordinary day was beautiful. Rey, fitted in midnight-blue velvet clinging to her body in  _ his  _ design, with a delicate silver tiara on her head and her hair pulled back and up in intricate braids – was  _ devastating.  _ And when she came to stand in front of him, in the same spot as that disastrous time they'd first been presented to each other as prince and princess, it finally struck him. 

Ben saw at last that if he hadn't already completely lost his head for the impossible woman in front of him, he was certainly more than halfway there. That maybe he had been hurtling along this inevitable path since the time he'd caught her safely in his arms beneath these very trees. Or perhaps his doom had been appointed even before that, from the very beginning, starting with a tangle of angry limbs and a knife in his face. 

Rey looked up at him and offered him a small smile, an almost nervous one, one that clearly invited a response of some kind. But Ben couldn't bring his face to move even a muscle. His thoughts lay scattered in a thousand different directions. 

_Not now,_ he wanted to shout at himself. And certainly not _here,_ he thought irritably, as he dug at the clasp on his neck with a savage finger – _why was it suddenly so_ _hot?_ He wondered what would happen if he collapsed here in front of Rey, exactly where she'd collapsed in front of him not one moon ago. 

_ She _ probably wouldn't catch  _ him _ . 

Someone – probably Han – cleared their throat loudly, jolting Ben abruptly back to the present. Rey was glancing at him sidelong, half concerned, half wary. Everyone else was just staring. 

Ben cleared his throat in turn. He was the one who had to say the only line that would be uttered in the whole simple, brief ceremony, and there was no point putting it off. He turned his eyes to Rey, trying to ignore the usual tightening of his throat that came whenever he looked into that clear hazel gaze. 

"Princess Eraina Palpatine," he said formally, hating how stiff and insincere his voice sounded. "Will you take my hand?" He held his hand out, just like he had that night in the city, only this time his hand was bare rather than gloved. And this time, Ben thought he saw Rey hesitate briefly, something she hadn't done even in the slightest when she'd accepted his offer to her in private.

But thought of this fled Ben's mind when Rey squared her silk-strapped shoulders and lifted her hand to meet his. Because the moment their bare hands touched, something between them  _ changed _ . 

It took all of Ben's willpower not to jerk his hand back like he'd been burned, because that was exactly what it felt like. Searing heat, hotter than the hottest fire – it was as if he'd stuck his hand into dancing flames. He dropped Rey's hand almost immediately, and just like that it was over. Leia came forward with a few general, congratulatory words as the crowd broke into a smattering of polite applause. Ben looked down at his hand and flexed it, still experiencing the sensation of being scalded. He wondered what it had felt like for Rey. 

_ Sparks _ . What she'd felt was sparks. 

Wait –

Ben whipped his head round to stare at his betrothed, only to find that she was staring right back at him, eyes wider than he'd ever seen them. Her lips were parted in surprise – no,  _ shock _ , and Ben  _ knew _ that she was just as bewildered as he was. 

Because somehow, in some impossible, inexplicable way, he was feeling her feelings too. 

Leia took a step or two until she was right next to Ben. She was too short to get anywhere near to whispering in his ear, but he heard her stern murmur all the same. "Whatever is going on with you two, I'd thank you to leave it to  _ later. _ "

Rey straightened and composed herself, and again Ben knew that it wasn't because she'd just snapped into her senses. It was because she had heard what Leia said, even if that shouldn't be possible because the queen had said it so quietly. Rey had heard what Leia had said because Ben had heard it. And Ben had known that Rey had heard what Ben had heard because  _ he  _ –

They were in each others' heads.

Someone was _in_ _his head_.

_ Again.  _

Ben slammed all the power he had into an immediate defense around his mind, using the Force to build an impenetrable fortress around his thoughts.  _ No, _ his own voice in his head babbled, frantic and angry.  _ No, no, no, not again  _ – 

_ Ben?  _ Rey's clipped accent entered the fray, strained and worried.  _ Are you –  _

So apparently his best wasn't strong enough. He mustered up the dregs of the Force he always kept in reserve, and shoved them at his shield in reinforcement.  _ GET OUT _ , he roared, and had he been in a calmer state of mind he would have been proud that he managed to keep the words from leaving his lips in a shout as well. 

Silence.

Blessed, blessed silence. 

Ben didn't look at Rey as decades of etiquette training took over and he woodenly offered her his arm. He walked them into position behind Leia and Han without so much as a sideways glance, leading the rest of the procession into the banquet hall where the betrothal feast awaited. When they slid into their seats at the high table and Leia made the appropriate toasts, Ben didn't even bother to raise his goblet before he lifted it to his lips and drank.  _ Deeply _ . 

"Ben," whispered Rey, and his knuckles tightened on his goblet as his defenses slipped, ever so slightly. Cursing internally, he dragged them up to their full height once again. Maintaining the Force shield against her presence in his mind was harder that he thought. 

"Rey," he gritted in return. "Please. Do not.  _ Speak  _ to me."

The antagonism hung thick in the air between them, and Ben's eyes couldn't help straying to take in Rey's face. Hurt, clearly written all over her features. And a bit of anger too, simmering under the surface. 

A beat passed, and then the princess shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said airily, yanking her gaze away from his and focusing it squarely on the loaded plate in front of her. "I'm starving." And she picked up her knife and fork and tore into her food with an intensity that, even for her, was slightly alarming. 

The festivities dragged on, with both Ben and Rey resolutely not speaking a word to each other or anyone else at the high table around them. Fortunately, the rest of the feast was carried on in full swing, with too much food and wine aplenty for anyone to bother that the two main objects of their celebration were less than merry themselves. When the music started to pick up and the dancing began, Ben was about to consider stiffly asking Rey to make a quick and graceful exit with him when he heard a voice at his ear. 

"Not just yet, young Solo," said Regent Kenobi, bent forward at the waist to whisper to both Ben and the princess. "I think there are some things that need to be discussed with the both of you before you go prancing off to have a shouting match somewhere."

Rey lifted an eyebrow, looking more like an unimpressed royal than Ben had ever seen her. It was odd to coincide this side of her with the feral gremlin he knew very well that she was. "Is that so, Regent? For my part, I was just enjoying my food."

Obi Wan sighed. "Eraina, I would like to speak to you and Prince Benjamin in private."

The glare she gave the regent would have cowed a lesser man. "And I said. That I'm. Still.  _ Eating. _ "

"Regent, perhaps you will be so kind as to wait for us in the garden," Ben cut in hastily over Rey, wondering when  _ he  _ had become the more accommodating one between the two of them. "The princess and I will join you as soon as she has finished her meal."

Kenobi retreated with a nod of assent, and Ben was left to watch Rey carry on with the rest of her sweet courses. He was going to ask her why she was being difficult to the regent when he hadn't done anything to her, when scraps of a vision, a memory, filled his mind. 

Jakku. An unforgiving sun. Days without a bite to eat, but having to go out and scrape together junk anyway. Maybe then she could buy more gruel. It was always going to be more gruel. 

The phantom feeling of hunger disappeared, only to be replaced by Ben's own guilt and anger. He'd seen the way Rey usually attacked her food, at the morning meals that were the only times they ever ate together, and had thought before how hard her life must have been on her. But it was another thing to forget about it in the annoyance of the moment, and then be reminded so viscerally by reliving her memories in his own head.

Ben glanced at his betrothed. Rey didn't show any signs of having any idea what he was thinking, so it was likely that he was doing a better job shielding his thoughts from her than keeping hers away from his. 

To Rey's credit, she finished the rest of her food quickly and stood up the instant she was done. Ben hastily got to his feet next to her, guiding her into a curtsey at Han and Leia alongside his own bow, followed by a wave of the hand at the rest of the dining hall. It was generally considered bad etiquette to leave the table before the queen did, but Leia and Han loved the wine and the music, and Ben had long given up on trying to outlast them at any given feast. 

Rey reluctantly gave him her arm, and together the two of them made their way from the hall out into the garden, where the night was too young for any feast-goers to straggle to yet. The instant they were out on the moonlit courtyard, Rey stepped pointedly away from Ben, freeing herself of him. 

Right. So she  _ was _ angry at him. Ben supposed that was reasonable. 

"Children," said Obi Wan, stepping out from behind something that was either a tall shrub or a very short tree. 

"Do not call me that," said Ben, just as Rey said, " _ You're _ not my father." 

The regent only smiled, looking at them one to the other. "It is remiss in me not to have seen it before," he said. "Two halves of a whole, indeed."

Rey only managed a noise of annoyance, but Ben had more years in court to fortify him. "What is it you wish to speak to us about, Regent?"

Obi Wan straightened slightly, almost imperceptibly, but Ben still noted it. The old man fixed them both with a beady eye. "I would like to speak about what happened between the two of you when you touched hands."

Ben stiffened, but Rey sprung forward. "What  _ was  _ that?" she demanded. "I could –  _ hear  _ him – I don't anymore, but – " Reluctantly, her gaze slid over to Ben, before she caught herself and looked away again. Ben hated how short-lived the budding trust between them had been. 

"That's because he's now shielding himself," said Obi Wan calmly. "He would know your mind as well, were he not blocking you too."

Rey quietened, swallowing hard, and Ben found himself staring helplessly at the small movement of her throat, the loveliest column painted silver by the moonlight. He spoke without even bothering to try and take his eyes off her. "Why is this happening?" he demanded softly. 

"It is happening," said Obi Wan, "because the two of you are a dyad in the Force."

Ben shut his eyes briefly, as if in doing so he could wish the words unsaid, or make them any less true. A dyad in the Force. They were a _ dyad in the Force. _

"A dyad in the Force," continued the regent, before Rey could open her mouth to ask, "harnesses a power as strong as life itself. It is a pairing of two beings made one with the Force, and it is unspeakably rare. Two individuals who form a Force dyad will share a connection that spans across all of distance and time."

"And it means we can hear each other's thoughts," said Rey, incredulously. 

"In the eyes of the Force, you and His Highness here are one," said Obi Wan simply. "Indistinguishable from one to the other. I suppose the Force merely deemed it unnecessary to keep your thoughts apart."

"Did you know this?" Ben demanded, rounding on the old man furiously. "Did everyone know this? Is that why we were arranged to be married?"

The regent had the gall to laugh, and Ben had never wanted to knock down a frail-looking elderly man so badly before. "I may be a lot of things – and Anakin and Sheev before me – but neither of us could have predicted the coming of a dyad. I didn't have any notion until the two of you touched hands, and rocks, the  _ shift  _ in the Force that was felt – even Leia was thrown by it.”

“My mother doesn’t have the Force,” said Ben, automatically.

Kenobi gave him an incredulous look. “Leia of the Skywalker blood, not one with the Force? Just because she didn't run herself to the ground centring her life around it like her twin did, doesn't mean she can't spot the awakening of a dyad right in front of her very eyes.” 

"Is that what caused it?" Rey asked, and Ben's shields were down enough that he could sense her shakiness through their bond even if her voice was controlled. "Us touching hands?"

"A dyad isn't  _ caused _ by anything, princess," Obi Wan told her kindly. "A union like this is one that is written in the stars."

And he was right, thought Ben. Them finally making direct skin-to-skin contact may have opened a gateway, but it hadn't  _ created _ the bond. His mind skipped back to the time he'd first met her, when he'd thought he was hallucinating, watching her slash at his face through her own eyes. It turned out that he really had. 

"Wait," said Rey suddenly. "You said that you and Leia felt – " She looked at Obi Wan accusingly. "You're Force-sensitive."

The regent sighed, and his eyes looked tired. "Yes, Your Highness," he said. "I am."

Ben felt a flash of anger come down through their bond. "But you're a regent of  _ Exegol _ ," she cried. "You're on the  _ council,  _ and the reason why  _ I  _ can't go to Exegol without the citizens calling for my head is  _ because  _ – "

"My being one of twelve persons on an elected council is not the same as having a Force-sensitive sovereign ruler," said Obi Wan, carefully. He paused, and then continued on. "And begging your pardon, Your Highness, the difference is doubly so when the ruler in question is descended directly from a known mass murderer."

Ben stepped forward, fists curling. "Don't you dare speak to her like – "

Obi Wan held up his hands. "I am sorry," he said, and the sincerity in his voice rang true. "I truly am, princess. I have tried, during my time on the council, to get the people of Exegol to treat those with the Force more fairly, as is only our due. My presence on the council is a testament that perhaps not all hope is lost in that cause.

"More than once since I have been here, I had a wish that perhaps this arrangement with the Alderaanian prince would not come through. That you could return to Exegol and find a place not on the throne, but amongst those with the Force who are trying to carve out an existence there. But now I am glad that path did not come to fruition, for it would be cruel indeed to separate two halves of a dyad." His eyes flickered from Rey to Ben and back again. "The consequences would be unthinkable."

Rey turned her face away from both Kenobi and Ben, but this was at least half a fruitless endeavour when Ben could feel every emotion coursing through her now that he was only half-heartedly shielding against her. His own thoughts and feelings, though, he tried his best to keep his leash on. He looked at Obi Wan. "What happens now?" he asked. 

Obi Wan lifted his shoulders, and in a lesser man his expression could be described as helpless. "If you do not wish to spend the remainder of your days hearing her thoughts or doing the shielding for both of you, then you will have to train her in the ways of the Force."

Ben felt very cold, very suddenly. He thought of his own training in the Force, with what had happened with his previous teacher, and the one before that. Pooled blood, staring eyes, with the face of his victim switching between breaths. "I don't think I would be the best person to be her master," he managed to grit out, between numb limbs.

"Who said anything about a master?" Rey asked, immediately annoyed. "And who's Snoke?"

She'd plucked the name right out of his mind, although thankfully given her nonchalant tone, none of the violent visuals and emotional turmoil. He ground his jaw at her. "Get out of my head!" he all but shouted. 

"Well, I don't know how!" she yelled back at him. "Seems like you're stuck with this until someone deigns to teach me, or better yet, I figure it out by myself, like I always have!"

"I'll leave you two alone," murmured Obi Wan, making a hasty retreat. "By your leave, Your Highnesses." 

For an instant, Ben contemplated leaving right after him, but he got a rein on his temper and quashed down on the churlish sentiment. A lone bench stood several steps away, a simple slab of stone balanced on two legs. Ben walked over and sat down on it, making sure to leave enough space if anyone were to join him. 

He felt Rey's surprise through their connection; she'd expected him to act on his anger and leave her. After a few beats had passed, he felt her own fury subside. She slipped onto the bench beside him. 

They sat side by side, letting the moonlight and the soft sounds of distant music fill in the spaces of silence between them. And the longer they sat like that, the better Ben felt, feeling the last dregs of confusion and anger ebb away from his body. He could tell that Rey was feeling calmer too, sending much less animosity pulsing down the bond between them. 

Finally, he spoke. "I have… a complicated relationship with the Force," he said. "But I will teach you what you need to know. So this whole dyad situation… gets better for the both of us."

She shook her beautiful head. "You shouldn't have to, if you don't want to," she began. 

He shook his head back at her. "I have to," he said. "You need a teacher."

They lapsed into silence again, and then Rey started to get to her feet. "It's been a long day," she said. "And this is – so much to take in. The mind sharing, the dyad – "

"I'll walk you back to your chambers," he said immediately, standing up. 

She offered him a small smile, and his weak, ridiculous heart thumped all the louder for it. A moment of hesitation crossed her face, but she pressed on nonetheless. "I never got to thank you," she said shyly, or anything as close to shy Rey could be. "For the dress. For all the dresses, really. They're so lovely, and I love them."

You're lovely, Ben thought. And I love you. As soon as the thoughts had formed in his head, he froze, eaten up with fear that Rey may have picked up on them. He was about to dive into their Force connection and search her thoughts to see whether she had, when he realised what he was doing and stopped, sick to his stomach. 

Everything about this was wrong. The mind-melding, the Force bond, the dyad connection being just  _ one more thing _ to  _ force _ the two of them together like they didn't have a  _ choice _ – 

Rey must have either read his feelings on his face, or felt them herself, because she looked at him with renewed sorrow. "Ben," she whispered, but he didn't want to hear it. 

"I'll see you tomorrow, princess," he said. And he turned on his heel and left her standing alone in the moonlight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to annoy everyone if I keep apologising for the slow-going updates, so I'm just going to not do that! Instead, I would like to thank every single one of you for reading and for the loveliest comments that warm my heart as I determinedly scrape together the time to stitch out a few words a day for this fic. So much love for you guys <3 Would love to hear what you guys think about the developments here ! Until next time!
> 
> P.S. If there is anything you think that should be tagged in my fic but isn't there, please do let me know!   
> P.P.S. I'm @reylo_mo on twitter. Come say hi!


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